


Paradox and Dreams

by Madlyie



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Courfeyrac is a flirt, Enjolras is ruthless, F/M, I didn't plan on so much angst, I have a weakness for Parnasse, M/M, Marius is a bad driver, and I can't write tags, and bad at feelings, nonbinary!Jehan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 93,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madlyie/pseuds/Madlyie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three moments that change Enjolras’s life significantly. He is eight when he first enters the subconscious mind of another person and leaves behind a perfectly normal life. He is seventeen when he leaves behind Paris and the only place he’s ever called home with his two best friends. Enjolras is twenty-six, Les Amis an independent, covert group of dream thieves fighting for a better world, and has no idea that his life is going to be turned upside down once again.<br/>All he knows is that his team is in dire need of a new forger.</p><p>A Les Mis Inception AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I. Enjolras I/VII

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's the promised Inception AU I've been talking about. For all who haven't seen the movie or if it's been a while, [here](http://inception.wikia.com/wiki/Dream/) is a short summary about what you need to know about the concept. This story isn't following the movie at all, it's just set in the same universe because I think the whole idea is so great.  
> English isn't my first language so I apologize for mistakes that might come up.  
> But alright, enough from me, here's the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it. ♥

PART I.

 

-Enjolras-

 

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

Seneca

 

***

I/VIII

***

 

Enjolras never forgot the first time he entered another person’s subconscious mind.

He was eight and suddenly the world seemed dull and restricted in comparison to the endless possibilities of controlled dreaming.

He was twelve when he first stole the deeply buried secret from a sleeping, unaware business man and made his father proud.

He was fourteen when he was first killed inside a dream and woke up screaming in pain without an injury. He was seventeen when he first killed someone inside a dream and woke up crying.

He was three days older when he told his best friends Combeferre and Courfeyrac everything and he left with them, left Paris and his father and his father’s plans for him after being trained to be the best dream thief in the world for more than half of his life.

The same day he decided to use his abilities for the good cause and in the following years Les Amis became the modern version of a Robin Hood legend. Internationally wanted thieves stealing from the minds of corrupt politicians and business men, exposing injustice, fraud and exploitation, emptying secret, multi-million dollar bank accounts and giving most of the money to charities and people who needed it all over the world.

They started with three and became a group of five.

An extractor, an architect, a chemist, a point man and a forger. Just that, no names, no faces. They worked perfectly together, never failed a job since then and never got caught.

Enjolras was twenty-six and didn’t expect anything to change.

The more of a surprise it was, when it happened.

 

 

***

 

N.A.N.J.I.N.G. – C.H.I.N.A.

                                                                      

“I’m leaving,” Montparnasse said to his half-empty plate of noodles that had to be cold by now.

Enjolras sat in front of his laptop going through the banking activities of the next marks they had in mind and didn’t even look up from the protocols when he answered absentmindedly, “Yeah sure, but be back in time.”

They had finished their last job two days ago but there was always more than enough to plan for their next projects. They always had to lay low for a week or two after a job for safety reasons but the time could as least be spend well.

They never stayed together as a whole group but split to be more difficult to track.

This time Montparnasse and Enjolras had ended up in China; Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly were somewhere in West Africa. It was better to not know exactly where the others were, too dangerous if someone got caught.

Not that they did.  

Their plan was to meet again in Warsaw in four days.

It wasn’t unusual for Parnasse to leave on his own from time to time. He wasn’t as much part of the team emotionally since he was the last to join and sometimes needed his space. He didn’t fiercely support their ideals but he did his job. Perfectly. So as long as there wasn’t anything for him to do Enjolras didn’t mind him leaving for a few days, three or four, five at maximum and he trusted the forger.

 

Montparnasse sighed heavily.

“No, Enjolras. I am _leaving._ ”

 

Only his tone made Enjolras look up.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

“For someone so smart you can be incredibly stupid,” Montparnasse said with something that could probably be considered a smile. Or close to a smile.

He slowly put down his chopsticks and placed them parallel next to each other with long, slender fingers, then folded his hands in his lap before he turned fully to Enjolras.

“I’m leaving the team.”

Enjolras frown deepened when he processed Montparnasse’s words or more precisely tried to process them because the thought alone was absolutely inconceivable.

Parnasse had been part of their team for more than three years. For _three years_ he had always been there and suddenly, out of the blue, he was going to _leave_?

“Why?”

 

The other man sighed and leaned back on the squeaking hotel sofa, running a hand carefully through shiny black hair. His eyes, so dark brown that they could easily be mistaken for black, were as cold as always.

“Because everybody say that it is worst for architects but that isn’t true,” Montparnasse started calmly, “We think architects go mad the fastest because they start to lose the sense of which world is real and which one isn't when they spend to much time dreaming but no one understands what forgers go through. Maybe because they are not exactly many and that is because it is even worse for us.”

“Us?” Enjolras asked and couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “I don’t remember there’s something like an _us_ for you.”

Montparnasse only shrugged. “Whether or not there is, it amounts to the same thing.”

“I understand,” Enjolras simply said.

“You don’t.”

He was right, he didn’t. But Enjolras wasn’t going to force the other man to stay if he didn’t want to. Montparnasse cut him off before he could even start a protest.

“I don’t expect you to, Enjolras. When was the last time you needed your totem?”

Enjolras frowned again. If he was honest with himself he couldn’t remember when he needed something to reassure him he was back in the real world and not still inside a dream.

Montparnasse nodded when he didn’t answer as if he had expected that.

“You’re an extractor Enjolras. For you a dream is a useful tool to get what you want. You don’t know how it feels like to lose your sense of reality and you certainly don’t understand how it feels like when you lose yourself because that is what a forger does. You can have a plan and stick to it but I have to become someone else, I copy people, appearance and behaviour and I become them. I improvise and I play and I make other people believe I am someone else and I do it well.”

“You do it best,” Enjolras stated. It wasn’t flattery. It was a fact.

Montparnasse shrugged. “Maybe I do. I try at least. I actually try so hard every time to do it best that it is difficult to figure out what’s an act and what’s real.”

“Why are you telling me this Parnasse? It’s not that I don’t know you don’t actually care about what we do. Why don’t you just say goodbye and leave?”

He did this job and he did it good and that was it. Enjolras was a professional and he knew Montparnasse was the best they could get. They needed him and now he was leaving and it was going to be a disaster to find a new forger.

“Well,” Montparnasse started calmly, “I just thought I owe you an explanation after everything. Three years are quite some time.”

“Parnasse, you’re not in my debt or anything.”

“You know that’s a lie, Enjolras,” Montparnasse stated just as coolly as before, “I owe you my life.”

“And I owe you mine more times then I can count.”

 

The story of how Montparnasse had joined their team had always been a complicated subject but Enjolras had thought that with the time it didn’t matter anymore. He tried not to dwell on it too much, mostly because it had been the last job in three years they hadn’t been able to finish. He had been forced to make an impulsive decision, practically gambling with their lives and he didn’t like thinking about it.  

But he hated the feeling that Montparnasse only did something because he thought he owed Enjolras, because he felt _obligated,_ because he _had_ to, even more. He know it was true but he had tried to believe they’d left it behind.

 

“You said it yourself,” Montparnasse continued, “I was never really a part of your little team.”

Enjolras pointedly ignored the word _little_. “And why not?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I never wanted to be,” Montparnasse said. “This is _your_ cause. Yours and Combeferre’s and Courfeyrac’s and Feuilly’s but mine? No. I mean, maybe _you_ can change the world if you want to and maybe you can’t, who knows? But _me_ and changing the world? That sounds more like a bad joke, doesn’t it?”

“It worked out well the last years.”

“I’m glad I could be of assistance,” Montparnasse replied flatly and neither of them said anything else for a while.

 

Enjolras had always known they weren’t close. They had worked together, they had spent a lot of time together all over the world but they had never really gotten to know each other.

Or maybe Parnasse knew him and it was only Enjolras who didn’t.

They sat in silence; the only sounds came through the open window, some cars and distant voices.

 

It was Montparnasse who started talking again. He wasn’t looking at Enjolras, just staring straight ahead. “I need you to know that I am not a good man Enjolras. I never was. For as long as I can remember I steal and I lie and I do what I want and I don’t have a problem with that. I kill people when I have to and I don’t waste another thought on them. I don’t care about righteousness, I really don’t. But you saved my life when you didn’t have to and I owed you. I still do. But I can’t help it when I lose myself more and more every single time I close my eyes. And I won’t end up not knowing who I am anymore. I can’t because that is the only thing I have left.”

Montparnasse was the best forger Enjolras knew but he had learned to read people like children’s books. If Parnasse was a good at acting, Enjolras was still better at seeing through him and he knew that he tried to hide his uncertainty under the perfect, cold mask.  

“It’s alright. You’ve done more than enough.”

Enjolras meant it.

Montparnasse nodded shortly. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

 

On the street a man screamed something and some annoyed voices answered. A car honked and then it was quit again.

 

“You know I’ve never heard you talking that much in a row,” Enjolras noted casually and half of a smile spread over Montparnasse’s face. It was actually just a twitch of the right corner of his mouth but that could be considered as such in Montparnasse’s case.

“Desperate measures,” he replied.

“You already packed, right?”

“Yesterday evening.”

“When are you leaving?”

He looked down at his watch, “My cab’s coming in five minutes.”

“You got everything planned then.”

The smile stayed. “I learned from the best.”  

 

Silence followed again.

 

Enjolras didn’t know what he was supposed to say.

Farewell? Have a good life? Shit, we need a new forger?

He stood up, “I’m going to walk you downstairs.”

Montparnasse rose from the sofa as well, “I’ll get my things.”

He disappeared into his room and quickly came back with his black leather jacket draped over one arm, in the other hand his suitcase.  

 

The air was warm, there were still some people outside but it would have been exaggeration to say it was busy, they were too far from the main streets, and yet it made Enjolras tense.

They always looked for locations in parts of cities that weren’t crowded but people were always a risk. It had been long ago since he had felt secure between more than five persons.

 

The cab came to stop just when the waked out of the door.

“Where are you going?”

Montparnasse shrugged, “Casablanca maybe,” he said and opened the trunk to put his suitcase in, “Always wanted to go there. But I will probably go back to Paris eventually.

“It’s risky in Paris.”

 “Where is it not?”

And well that was a question Enjolras had no answer to.

Instead he held out his hand and Montparnasse shook it firmly.

“Goodbye, Parnasse. And be careful.”

The words sounded hollow but the other man’s smile lasted longer this time.

“I will. You too.”

Then he climbed into the cab and closed the door behind him.

Enjolras turned around only to hear the other man calling after him again some seconds later. When he looked back the window was open and Montparnasse was holding a small sheet of paper between two fingers.  

 

“I thought you might need a new forger.”

Enjolras walked back the few steps. “You know one?”

“Not exactly. I know someone who can get you one.”

“Do you trust them?” Enjolras asked suspiciously.

Montparnasse laughed but it sounded real this time. “You don’t get an option,” he said with a smirk and handed him the note.

 

Enjolras unfolded it and as he read the number and the name written down in neat cursive he had to do a double-take.

“Parnasse, where the hell, did you get that?” he choked out but when he looked up the cab was already turning around the corner at the end of the street.

 

 

***

 

 

_3 years earlier_

 

M.O.S.C.O.W – R.U.S.S.I.A

 

 

The second dream layer was Enjolras’s dream.

Courfeyrac was staying in the first; it was only Enjolras and the two forgers now.

No Subject. The Mark wasn’t where he was supposed to be.  
Enjolras could hear the projections that weren’t his own trying to break through the door that wouldn’t last long anymore.

They had chosen an easy job, low risk to test the two forgers they hadn’t worked with until now, two dream layers deep.

They’d planned out every eventuality.

They had _thought_ they had planned out every eventuality.

Not this one.

Not the one where someone had informed the Mark of their plan, betraying them and basically handing hem over on a silver plate during a job that was supposed to be more of a formality.  

The creaking of the wooden door got louder.

He didn’t have time left; he didn’t have time left to think about what had happened the last few weeks, who had done what, who was logically the traitor, _there was no time left._

He looked from the young man, standing straight and proud, dark eyes fixed firmly on him, to the other one, older, breathing heavily.

 

Enjolras didn’t gamble.  

It was too risky.

He didn’t do it.

 

But there was no time left.

 

The younger man didn’t move, just stood there, not saying a word. The other one ran his hands through strays of blonde hair, fear in his eyes.

 

When you die in a dream you wake up.

 

From the corner of his eye Enjolras caught a glimpse on the younger man’s right hand.

His knuckles were white from clenching his fingers into the fabric of his jacket.

 

The door broke and without a second thought, without any thought at all, Enjolras shot him right into the chest.

The second he raised the gun to his own forehead he saw the surprise, the horror, the hate in the other man’s eyes and knew he had made the right decision before he pulled the trigger.

 

Enjolras woke up and immediately grabbed the closest gun which happened to be the one in Feuilly hand.

 

If you die in reality there’s no coming back.

 

He shot the older man who was still sleeping in the head with one, perfectly aimed bullet.

Combeferre and Feuilly stared at him.

“We have our forger,” Enjolras simply said nodding towards the other man who had sat up, hands pressed on his chest as he tried to control his breathing. Enjolras kicked the leg of the chair Courfeyrac was sleeping on so that it fell back onto the bed. The architect jumped up, a wild look in his green eyes and it took him just the blink of an eye to take in the situation, his gun was in his hand the second later.

Everyone awake, except for the Mark still sleeping, eyelids trembling and breathing harshly.

“What are we going to do now?”

 

Enjolras looked at his friends then at the black haired man whose lips were pressed firmly together, his face pale, his pupils blown even though it didn’t make a difference because his eyes were black like the night.

  
“We run.”

 

 

_***_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked the first chapter, a new one is going to be uploaded once to twice a week. You can also say [hi](http://vintage-jehan.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and I'd really love to hear what you think so far. ♥


	2. Part I. Enjolras II/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick crash course ahead of this chapter so you know who's responsible for what in this story:  
> Enjolras is an extractor. That means he infiltrates another person’s mind through dreams to steal their secrets.  
> Courfeyrac is an architect. He basically designs dream spaces.  
> Feuilly is the point man so he’s responsible for researching and gaining as much information as possible on the Marks.  
> Combeferre is a chemist. He’s the one who is managing and adjusting the drugs to enter the dream world. Somnacin is the name of the most important substance that is needed to initiate dream sharing and is controlled by an unknown authority.  
> Montparnasse was the forger of the team, someone who is able to change their appearance in the dream world.

 

 

 

II/VIII

 

W.A.R.S.A.W. – P.O.L.A.N.D.

 

 

The taxi driver stopped in front of the small hotel that probably looked just like any other hotel in the outskirts of the city.

Enjolras fished his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and handed the man the money and an according amount of tips. With his travel bag, plaid shirt and unruly hair he passed as a completely ordinary tourist who couldn’t afford one of the fancy hotels in the city centre but still had enough money to pay a taxi rather than take public transport from the airport.

He walked in and the woman behind the counter smiled politely when he asked for a single room for three nights. She handed him a key after she wrote down his (false) particulars and offered to call someone to help him with his package.

Enjolras declined politely and went up to the second floor where room No. 21 was supposed to be. He didn’t even bother taking a look and headed straight to room No. 27.

He looked down at his watch.   

The numbers switched from 13:46 to 13:47 and Enjolras knocked.

Five seconds later he knocked again and Courfeyrac opened the door.

“To the tick as always boss,” the smaller man grinned, his black hair sticking into every direction as if he had just rolled out of bed.

“Don’t call me that.” Enjolras rolled his eyes but the only answer he got was an even brighter smile. He passed the architect who poked his head out of the door to look down the floor.

“Where’s Parnasse?” he asked as Enjolras threw his travel bag on the floor and sat down on the sofa next to Combeferre.

“He is in Casablanca. Probably,” he added with a shrug because he actually had no idea if Montparnasse really went there.

Feuilly who sat in an armchair next to the sofa looked up from his laptop.

“What the hell is he doing in Casablanca?”

“Maybe he’s looking for the begining of a wonderful friendship?” Courfeyrac suggested.

Combeferre honest to god chuckled at that and Feuilly and Enjolras exchanged a resigned look over their teammates’ heads.

“When will he be back?” Feuilly asked.

“He won’t. He left.”

 

The silence lasted for exactly one second.

 

“He _left_?” Courfeyrac repeated, “What the fuck do you mean he left? Why?”

“He didn’t say much,” Enjolras shrugged and pointedly ignored Courfeyrac’s murmured objection of “When does he ever”.

“But I understand why he did it,” he stated and that seemed to be enough for Combeferre and Feuilly to nod.

“You don’t just _leave_ from one day to another,” Courfeyrac insisted, “He could have talked to us. He could have waited and not just run off to Casablanca! Why that anyways? What’s so great about that? You just don’t do that to your…,” he stopped, “… friends … companions? Team? What were we actually?”

“I guess this question shows that it was just a matter of time,” Combeferre said and Courfeyrac sighed as he flopped down onto the sofa that was already quite small for two people.

His following words were partly drowned by the fact that his face was buried in Combeferre’s pullover but Enjolras could decipher the words, “Why do you always have to be so reasonable?”

Combeferre’s short laugh couldn’t hide his concern.

Feuilly eventually asked what everyone was thinking.  “What are we going to do now?”

“I never thought I’d have to say that again,” Combeferre sighed, “but we need a forger.”

Enjolras was almost tempted to laugh at that. He still vividly remembered the disaster that had followed to this sentence the last time.

 

He tried to reach down into the pocket of his jeans what turned out to be rather difficult with Courfeyrac’s legs in the way but the architect didn’t show any inclination of moving.  

“We don’t have any time to look for a new one,” Feuilly frowned, his hands already running over the keys of his laptop, “Checking people, doing test runs. I mean yes, it sucks that Parnasse left but we do need a replacement and it’s probably going to take weeks to find one.”

Enjolras eventually managed to get a hand into his pocket and reached for the note.

“He took care of that.”

Feuilly paused in his movements, “You got a name?”

“A number.” The point man’s hands were hovering over the keys but Enjolras added, “It’s not a forger. But it’s someone who can get us one.”

Courfeyrac’s head snapped up, Feuilly frowned and Combeferre asked thoughtfully, “Do you think we can trust them?”

“I can only repeat what Parnasse said. There’s nothing like an option,” Enjolras sighed and handed the chemist the sheet of paper.

Combeferre paled. “That’s not possible.” He stood up and almost made Courfeyrac topple off the sofa but headed straight to Feuilly to show him the note.

“Oh my god,” the other man breathed out and a second later his hands were back to typing furiously.

“What? What’s not possible? Oh my god, what is it?” Courfeyrac asked confused and Combeferre handed him the paper without taking his eyes of the screen of Feuilly’s laptop.

Courfeyracs’ eyes widened almost comically.

“Holy shit!”

“That pretty much sums it up,” Enjolras deadpanned and Courfeyrac looked up.

“Holy shit”, he repeated more insistent. “Where the fuck did he get that from?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Enjolras sighed, “He didn’t tell me. He was gone before I could ask.”

The architect laughed. It sounded a little bit hysterically. “Yeah sure, I mean, how are you supposed to explain that you have the number of the most powerful person in the dream sharing business on a sheet of paper like some bar flirt’s. I guess to explain that is really too much to ask!”

“Courf, calm down.”

“No! No. No, that’s nothing to be calm about, Enjolras! No one knows who this person actually is, if it’s a man or a woman or neither. Everything is possible because _no one_ knows _anything_ about them but a last name and oh yes, I forgot, just that they’re basically the only one who has access to the only substance that makes all of what we’re doing even possible! Everybody fears nothing but a name, this is like fucking Voldemort, and we’re supposed to call them like a damn _service centre_? ”

His voice had gone up an octave while speaking and he was running his fingers through his already rumpled black hair.   

There was no sound but the one of Feuilly’s fingers running over the keys until he eventually announced, “It’s a private number in Paris.”

“Paris. Wonderful,” Courfeyrac stated making sure everyone knew that it absolutely _wasn’t_ wonderful.

“What are we going to do now?” Combeferre asked and Enjolras stood up.

“Feuilly, please connect me with them.”

“What?”

“Courf…,” Combeferre tried to calm the other man down who had rose from the sofa as well.

“No, Ferre. No one calls them, they call you when they want to, that’s the way it goes. God, you are all behaving as if we’re talking about the milk man but may I remind you it’s _Prouvraire_ we’re talking about here?”  
The chemist held the architect’s gaze and nodded. “It’s a risk.”

“It’s a really big risk,” Feuilly agreed thoughtfully.

They turned to Enjolras.

He looked at every one of them. Combeferre seemed concerned but still resolute while Courfeyrac breathed heavily through his nose, his lips pressed together. Feuilly looked like he didn’t really know what to do next, his fingers hovering millimetres over the keyboard.

 

“Prouvraire has never been anything but impartial. I’m fairly sure they’re able to reveal every single person who ever used Somnacin for dream sharing. They could have busted us years ago. And I trust Parnasse.”

 

Courfeyrac fell back down onto the sofa with a defeated sigh. “Connect the call Feuilly.”

The point man nodded, tipped a few keys then stood up and set the laptop on the little table in front of Enjolras.

 

It beeped.

“What are you going to say?” Combeferre asked calmly.

Beep.

“Only what’s necessary.”

Beep.

“Alright.”

 

“ _Good afternoon, you reached the bureau of J. Prouvraire, my name is Joly. How can I help you?_ ”

 

Enjolras blinked. Well, he hadn’t been expecting that.

“Good afternoon,” he said while Courfeyrac whispered every name with J that came to his mind until Combeferre covered the architect’s mouth with his hand.

“I received your contact information from a former team member of mine who assured me that it was the best possible option to find a fitting replacement for him.”

“ _We were awaiting your call_ ,” the male voice said friendly, “ _Monsieur Enjolras, I assume_?”

Enjolras clenched his teeth. This wasn’t good, they didn’t use their real names only when they were talking to each other but of course even the secretary knew.

Combeferre took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, a sign that he was contemplating.

“You assume correctly,” Enjolras confirmed after a moment of hesitation.

“ _We’ve been informed your team is in need of a forger._ ”

“That's correct.”                                                                          

“ _I can assure you that my boss already has someone in mind who has just the abilities you’re looking for.”_

“I wasn’t expecting anything else.”

The man at the other end of the line laughed. It sounded young and so naturally and genuine that Enjolras immediately got even more suspicious.

“How does your boss imagine the next steps of our business?”

“ _Monsieur Enjolras,_ ” he said and it was possible to hear his smile, “ _This isn’t a trade or anything like that. My boss is a great supporter of your cause and glad to help you and your team in such a significant matter._ ”

Combeferre stopped pinching the bridge of his nose and frowned. Feuilly seemed mostly confused and Courfeyrac obviously found the whole situation ridiculously amusing.

“That’s nice to hear,” Enjolras simply answered because he had literally no idea what else to say.

“ _My boss wants you to know that we have only considered the best possible option for your cause. The person we chose is important to them on a personal level._ ”

“Them?”

“ _Are my boss’s preferred pronouns of any significance?_ ”

Enjolras frowned. “Of course not.”

“ _Wonderful,_ ” the voice continued happily, obviously pleased about the answer, “ _Our contact and my boss have been working together for a long time. That’s why a meeting beforehand is nonnegotiable to make sure of your honourable intentions._ ”

Feuilly let out more of a bark than a laughter but Enjolras felt very much like doing the same.

“No offense, Mister, but there aren’t only _our_ honourable intentions which are questionable.”

“ _Of course,_ ” he agreed sounding not offended at all. If it was possible he sounded even more delighted. “ _Then I suppose a meeting with my boss is appreciated on both sides?_ ”

Enjolras looked at the others. Courfeyrac shrugged, Feuilly nodded slightly and Combeferre’s look said, ‘There isn’t another option, right?’

 

“Very much appreciated,” Enjolras replied.

“ _Great!”_ There was a short pause in which the fast clicking of fingers on computer keys could be heard, “ _Due to our information you’re currently staying in Warsaw?_ ”

Feuilly only shook his head in disbelief.

“Yes, we are.” Enjolras said.

The man either didn’t notice or chose to ignore his strained tone. “ _Are there any circumstances that would make it impossible for you to be in Paris in two days?_ ”

Combeferre frowned not really enthusiastic but nodded as well as Feuilly. Courfeyrac stared at the ceiling shaking his head but Enjolras knew it wasn’t due to the question.

“No, there aren’t.”

“ _If there should be any problems you can always call us to reschedule. If not my boss would like to meet you and your team at half past three in the Museé de l’Orangerie in two days, is that alright?_ ”

The strange thought occurred to Enjolras that it felt more like he was making an appointment at the dentist than arranging a meeting with the most influential person in their business - as Courfeyrac had truly pointed out - in a goddamn art museum of all places.

“We’re looking forward to it.”

“ _Wonderful. They will be glad to hear that._ ”

“How will we recognize each other?”

“ _You don’t have to worry about that,_ ” he said kindly, “ _You will. Let the how be our matter._ ”

Enjolras clenched his jaw but there wasn’t exactly much he could do. “Of course.”

“ _Thank you very much for your call Monsieur Enjolras._ ”

And then he hung up.

 

Feuilly closed the laptop.

“That was,” he started but then stopped and shook his head again.

“Ridiculous!” Courfeyrac exclaimed while Combeferre mumbled, “Interesting.”

Feuilly looked at them. 

“I was going to go by terrifying yet strangely admirable to be honest. They seem to know _everything_.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but agree to all of them.

They were all quiet for a moment until Combeferre broke the silence and stated, “We need to plan how to go to that meeting as riskless as possible.”

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac deadpanned, “A meeting with JP.” When everyone else casted him a disbelieving look he shrugged, “Until we don’t know better that’s just as good as anything.”

 It somehow broke a bit of the tense atmosphere when Combeferre let out a sceptical laughter before he said, “Travelling will be risky and when we’re in Paris it’s going to be even riskier. We have to be as inconspicuous as possible.”

Feuilly opened his laptop again. “We have to keep the use of public transport in the city at a minimum and avoid places with crowds for as long as possible. The most secure option to get there is probably by train, first class, with a lot of quick changing on small stations, so it’s more difficult to trace us than a simple one way flight for all four of us.”

“Can you figure out the fastest route that still has enough stops to lower the risk to a minimum?”

The point man’s fingers were already running over the keys.

“No problem, boss,” he smirked and Enjolras rolled his eyes.

Courfeyrac groaned. “God, I hate German trains. We’ll probably end up in Hamburg when we want to go to Cologne or something like that.”

“How are we supposed to not use public transport in Paris?” Combeferre ignored the other man’s objection with a small smile lingering on his lips, “Do we want to rent a car or go by cab all the time?”

Enjolras thought about it for a moment but before he could answer Courfeyrac already sat up straight.

 

“We could ask Marius.”

 

“Marius?” Enjolras repeated sceptically.

He was one of Courfeyrac’s old friends from school; they had been roommates when they went to university until Courfeyrac left Paris with Enjolras and Combeferre.

“Don’t you think he’s being observed?”

“We haven’t seen each other in three years.” Courfeyrac said, “If someone thought I’d still be a part of his life they wouldn’t think that anymore by now.”

“It’s a good cover,” Feuilly said without looking up. “Visiting a friend and exploring the city like tourists.”

Combeferre agreed calmly, “It’s inconspicuous.”

Enjolras looked from the chemist, to the architect, to the point man and nodded.

 

“Well, to Paris it is then." 

 

***


	3. Part I Enjolras III/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter and two new characters. And thank you all once again for reading, leaving kudos and commenting so far. ♥

III/VIII

 

P.A.R.I.S. – F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

 

Enjolras had been almost everywhere in the world, on every continent, in more countries he could count and a lot of them he didn’t even remember anymore.

They never stayed long at one place but there were some they had to go to more often because of their ‘jobs’. New York was busy and Tokyo and other cities were good to go under for a week or two if they had to. He liked Prague, a labyrinth of tradition and historical beauty, or Buenos Aires even though his Spanish was on the level of a student in freshman year. Morocco had its charm as well as St. Petersburg or Havana.

 

“Attention ladies and gentlemen. We will be reaching Paris, Gare du Nord, in a few minutes. This train terminates here.”

 

Paris, Paris was more.

 

Over the time Enjolras had realized that with all the travelling and running his home was wherever his team would be. His friends were one of the few constants in his life.

But if he was ever going to be able to settle down, if he wanted to, it wouldn’t take a second for him to decide on going back to Paris. He hadn’t been born there, not even moved up from the south until he had been twelve but it didn’t matter, it still felt like home.

The more it hurt that they weren’t able to go to Paris without taking a high risk. They were known in France, especially in the capital, since they had coordinated all of their actions from there at the beginning of their “carrier” until it had gotten too dangerous to stay, the attention of Interpol, DGSE, CIA and more too much and they’d had to leave.

That one time they’d came back about three years ago for a very important operation that couldn’t been relocated, they would have almost caught Courfeyrac if luck hadn’t been on their side. The architect had been able to escape the agent that was tracking him thanks to some student in a rush who had knocked the man over as he tried to follow him out of the metro.

 

They hadn’t returned to Paris since.

 

“God, how long has it been now?” Combeferre took Courfeyrac’s suitcase from the overhead rack because the architect was too small to reach up. Feuilly put on his battered brown hat and shrugged. “I don’t even know. About three years or something like that?”

 

For the other it wasn’t a problem.

Feuilly had been born and raised in Poland and for him the most beautiful place on earth was a village called something starting with a W and too few vowels for Enjolras to pronounce it correctly at the coast of the Baltic Sea where he had lived until the death of parents when he was nine.

Courfeyrac just needed people to feel home and people were everywhere and his friends always with him.

Combeferre called himself a citizen of the world and he meant it.  

But for Enjolras there would always be a part of his heart that was longing to return to France someday.

So when the most powerful person in their business was ordering them to Paris he wasn’t going to argue.

If Prouvraire wanted to have them caught they could do that in any other city as well, if they wanted to help them they might just have more work to do in Paris.

 

“Thank you for travelling with us today. We wish you a pleasant stay in Paris.”

 

When they got out of the train Enjolras was almost able to ignore the unpleasant, paranoid feeling he got in crowds or in general when there were a lot of people around him that he didn’t know.

They had to stay calm and inconspicuous and…

 

“Marius!” Courfeyrac yelled over the entire platform when he found his way through the crowd and bumped into at least half a dozen of people to fling his arms around the startled young man who was waiting for them.

So much to staying inconspicuous.

In the years Enjolras hadn’t seen him Marius hadn’t changed a lot.

He was still the tall, lanky guy with freckles all over his face and the reddish hair cut in an old-fashioned way that had been sleeping on Courfeyrac’s couch for the better part of a year. He was looking a little bit less clumsy but his face still had the innocence of a boy. They had never been quite close but despite his childlike naïveté Enjolras did like the young man who was remarkably smart, kind and humble.

When Courfeyrac eventually let go of him Marius shook hands with everyone else smiling brightly.

He had no idea what they were doing for a living but the official version was that they did “consulting” jobs for politicians and economists all over the world.

Well, it wasn’t _completely_ wrong.

 

“It’s so good to see you, young man,” Courfeyrac said for the third time, “How you’re doing? God, it’s been _ages,_ right? Tell me, is there a Madame Pontmercy you haven’t told me about?” The architect winked and Marius blushed slightly what made his freckles stand out even more but shook his head.

“You know, it’s very busy with work lately, lots of work and, and stuff and it’s not like, well, women don’t queue for constantly broke students, do they?”

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes and good-naturedly knocked their shoulders together.

“Oh come on! Show me the one who doesn’t swoon when a handsome fellow like you makes love declarations in six different languages.”

“They don’t,” Marius mumbled. Enjolras didn’t understand the second part he added but Courfeyrac’s eyes widened.

“ _Nine?_ Did you just say nine languages? Are you kidding me?”

“That’s stunning, Marius,” Combeferre said with admiration and Enjolras silently agreed.

He had met Marius when the other man had been studying in his first semester of English and German, trying to stay flow with translating jobs. He had already been fluent in Spanish and Italian back then having learned the languages from his nannies when he was a child.

Enjolras had met lots of people who with a talent for learning languages but knowing nine at such a young age as Marius, well, that was truly stunning.

Especially because Enjolras himself had trouble with even the simplest phrases in other languages then French and English and even there people sometimes mocked him for the hints of his accent he couldn’t suppress.

Feuilly could speak Polish as well as French and English, Combeferre about three different Indian dialects due to his mother’s heritage plus ancient Greek and Latin and even hieroglyphics even though Enjolras really didn’t know how that was supposed to be useful.  Even Courfeyrac had learned English and also Italian because he thought it fit his personality or something like that.

He always teased that Enjolras was bad at learning other languages because French was just perfect for _his_ personality, flowing and elegant – and Courfeyrac would add _slightly_ _arrogant_ sometimes even if he ended up with a small bruise on his arm.

 

They walked out of the building, the contrast between glasses and stone made Enjolras want to stand there and just look at all the details of the pillars and statues of the façade but they headed to Marius’s small green Sean too quickly.

 

“That thing still exists?” Courfeyrac asked delighted as Enjolras, Combeferre and Feuilly squeezed together in the backseat while Courfeyrac continued chatting enthusiastically with the driver.

Meanwhile Enjolras looked out of the window, trying to take in as much of the city as possible, the buildings, the pavements, the trees, all the streets.

They didn’t know how long they would stay but Feuilly had planned their route so that they had arrived early enough to spend some time with Marius and in the city but not enough to bring their bags into his small apartment so there was the possibility to leave quickly if they had to.

In case Marius wondered why they were meeting a new contact, as Combeferre had put it, in the Orangerie he didn’t mention it.

 

“And that’s how I learned Arabic,” he ended a story that Enjolras had only listened with one ear and then continued chatting about his own job without ever asking more about theirs.

Enjolras couldn’t help but become increasingly suspicious at that until he met Courfeyrac’s eyes and the silent reproach when the architect realized what he was thinking.

Enjolras wanted to sigh because he couldn’t simply shake off his paranoia even when it was just Marius. The young man was like a giant, always slightly confused puppy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

But there was the feeling of being watched somewhere in the back of Enjolras’s mind and he couldn’t really turn it off anymore. It was just another constant in his life.

 

When it was about time that Marius drove them to the Tuileries, they insisted on paying the parking costs that were horrendous everywhere in Paris and the young man accompanied them to the museum.

Enjolras felt tenser with every step they took while Courfeyrac was jumping up and down like a bouncing ball. Feuilly had turned silent long ago and Combeferre was still trying to maintain a polite conversation with Marius about learning Hebrew.

  
It was quite a warm day for the early spring, some clouds hung in the bright blue of the sky. There were tourists at every corner but they weren’t as much as in the summer. Actually the city didn’t seem crowded but calm and welcoming instead.

Combeferre had left his coat in the car and Courfeyrac had put on a pair of horribly heart-shaped sun glasses he had bought in Ibiza once if Enjolras remembered correctly.

 

When they were at the entrance of the art museum Marius who had brought some books with him announced that he would be waiting outside. “I’m just going to be around here, the weather is just wonderful and you have good…,” he said and suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening, fixed on something behind their backs.

Enjolras turned around to see a young woman self-confidently approaching them with a notepad under one arm and a Smartphone in her hand. She wore a perfectly fitting dark grey pencil skirt, black high heels to a matching handbag and a white blouse that not only complimented her skin-colour but also her light pink hair.

Marius was so obviously starring that Courfeyrac stepped on his foot so his eyes snapped away and he blushed furiously.

“Monsieurs,” she said politely with a friendly smile, “My name is Cosette Fauchelevant but call me Cosette. You were in contact with my colleague Joly. I hope there weren’t any complications on your way here?.”  

“Everything went fine, thank you,” Enjolras said politely.

Her eyes flickered to him and reached out her free hand with a smile. “It’s an honour to meet you, Monsieur Enjolras.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.”

“And you must be Monsieur Combeferre,” she turned to the chemist who shook her hand. “No need for the Monsieur, Cosette,” he said warmly and Cosette nodded with a smile that Combeferre returned but Enjolras knew he was still wary, he could see it in the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“And I’m Courfeyrac,” Courfeyrac announced brightly.

Feuilly introduced himself by saying his name and added, “But I’m sure you knew that.”

Cosette smiled and under any different circumstances she would be doing a great job of making it easy to like her.

“We always try to be informed about the operations of your very promising team,” said, her smile never faltering so Enjolras was close to believing it was actually real.

“But I don’t know you.” She turned to Marius who didn’t seem to know what to do but staring at her face.

“My name is Marius… Pontmercy,” he stuttered out in a way almost painful to watch but Cosette seemed absolutely delighted.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Marius Pontmercy and a surprise. I had no information on another member of the team.”

“Oh, I’m just… I’m not really…”

“He’s a translator,” Courfeyrac helped out.

“How interesting!” she said and looked like she meant it. Marius blushed more if that was even possibly. She turned to Enjolras, “What an uncommon idea but I can see the purpose behind it, that is truly innovative.”

 

That made his thoughts pause for a moment. He could see Feuilly frowning, Combeferre rolled his lower lip with his teeth thoughtfully and Courfeyrac practically beamed.

Well, that was something they could discuss later.

 

 “My boss will very soon be meeting you inside at Les Nymphéas, second room. There have been some minor troubles in another matter but it is nothing you need to be concerned about. It just means a little delay.”

She handed them tickets and assured them they would get inside without complications.

“I was only informed about the four of you,” she said apologizing towards Marius.

“What? No… no, that’s not a problem! I was going to wait… outside… here. Just around here,” he explained or tried to.

Cosette smiled at him. “That’s nice. I have to wait as well. Would you mind if I join you?”

He shook his head enthusiastically and that was obviously enough of an answer.

 

Enjolras followed the others to the entrance wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into.   

 

***


	4. Part I. Enjolras IV/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: As long as Enjolras doesn’t recognize Jehan he assumes the he/him/his pronouns but once he knows who Jehan is he immediately corrects himself.  
> So yes, meet Jehan! I hope you enjoy the chapter. I surely enjoyed writing it.

IV/VIII

 

M.U.S.S.E.E.   D.E.  L’.O.R.A.N.G.E.R.I.E. – P.A.R.I.S. – F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

 

Enjolras had been staring at painted water lilies for what felt like an eternity. Still when he looked down at his watch for the third time in the last two minutes it turned out that barley a quarter of an hour had passed.

People were coming and going but none of them made any intentions of starting a conversation and even though Cosette had said they didn’t have to be concerned Enjolras was staring to feel more and more uneasy with every minute.

The fact that they had no idea how the person they were going to meet even looked like, if they were young or old, white or black, they literally had _no_ idea – left Enjolras not being able to do anything at all and he  _hated_ it. 

He tried to focus on the colours of the paintings that probably were supposed to be soothing.

Art had never been a subject he knew a lot about so he couldn’t bring himself to find any major differences in the huge canvases stretched over the curved walls of the oval rooms.

 

Feuilly was constantly wandering from the first room to the second one obviously thrilled by the art. He’d been telling Combeferre tons of things about impressionism and Monet in the past minutes. 

Courfeyrac was sitting next to Enjolras on the bench in the middle of the room, his right leg shaking while he alternated between running his hands through his already rumbled black hair and tipping restless rhythms on his knee with his fingers.

He was constantly looking over his shoulder at a young man with a bright yellow button up under a pink and green striped cardigan. He sat in a wheelchair in front of the canvas and scribbled words into a notebook on his lap.

 

He was one of the other eight people in the room next to their team.

 

There was a group of three elderly Asian women who chatted enthusiastically; a tall, broad man in a waistcoat with his long dark hair pulled up into a bun; a man about forty whom Enjolras had already considered of being the one they were waiting for but he was listening to the audio guide and didn’t waste a look on them. The last ones were a young man and a woman. He was explaining something to her while she seemed extraordinary bored.

 

Enjolras looked down at his watch.

16 minutes.

 

“Okay,” Courfeyrac leaned in and whispered into his ear, “I don’t care if Prouvraire is coming any second or not but I’m going to stand up now and talk to that absolutely gorgeous creature over there.”

He was about to stand up but Enjolras grabbed his arm. “Are you insane? You want to flirt while we’re on duty?”

“We’re not cops, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac shot back, his voice still only loud enough that Enjolras could understand him, “And yes, this is what I intend to do now because I _will_ be insane if I don’t get some distraction.”

Enjolras couldn’t really argue against that though.

The middle-aged man left the room when Courfeyrac stood up and strolled casually towards the young man. He was indeed handsome, all light brown skin, high cheekbones and shoulder long hair, and slender, elegant fingers.

Enjolras stood up as well and started walking through the room, not quite following Courfeyrac but staying close just in case. Maybe also because he needed a distraction and he preferred the possibility of the architect making a fool of himself to Feuilly’s art theory if he had to be honest.

 

The three Asian women left the room and it got a little bit quieter.

 

“I honestly haven’t seen something so beautiful in a while,” Enjolras heard Courfeyrac saying and oh god, he almost regretted eavesdropping already.

The young man looked up from his book with a small smile. “They really are astonishing.”

Courfeyrac grinned. “Who says I was talking about the paintings?”

Enjolras had to suppress a groan because _really?_

To his surprise or more accurately horror, the response was a quiet laughter. Enjolras saw Feuilly and Combeferre looking over at them. The chemist kept frowning slightly when Feuilly continued talking.

“Well, in case we _are_ talking about the paintings I feel like I have to admit that I do find them nice to look at but actually a little bit boring,” the other man answered and Enjolras still couldn’t really believe that whatever Courfeyrac was doing worked. He didn’t know if it was impressive or just surreal.

“Boring wouldn’t be my choice of words. Quite the opposite. I think _they_ are incredibly fascinating.”

“They are not half as fascinating as you might think.”

“I would love to convince myself of the opposite.”

“I start to believe you really aren’t talking about the artwork.” At the tone of amusement and fake surprise Enjolras didn’t have to look at Courfeyrac to know how smug his grin had to look like.

“I don’t know a whole lot about art,” he said cheerfully.

“Me neither.”

“Why are you here then?”

“A friend of mine told me this place would make a soothing environment and I have to admit he was right, it’s quite appeasing. And inspiring.”

Courfeyrac nodded at the book. “You’re a writer?”

“I prefer poet but it’s just a free-time activity, I’m afraid.”

“Why that?”

“It’s not what pays the bills.”

“Ah, the wonderful necessity of a work that pays actual money."

“Oh, my job is certainly not awful. It the reason why I ended up in Paris and I love the city. It is truly beautiful.”

“From what I’ve seen I can agree but I’m actually here for the first time,” Courfeyrac lied smoothly.

 

The woman followed the enthusiastic man out of the room looking like she was suffering the torments of hell.

 

The young man chuckled softly. “So you’re a tourist?”

“Don’t laugh at me, you said you only came to the city for your job so I assume you aren’t from here either.”

“A foreigner in Paris. How rare,” he said and Enjolras could hear the smile in his voice. He pretended staring at the painting intensely. “But you assume correctly. I am actually from Montreal.”

“Montpellier,” Courfeyrac offered and well, that was at least only about 120 miles east from the truth. “But well, that’s not half as cool as being able to say, “Hey, I’m Canadian!”.”

“I’m hardly Canadian. I was born there, yes, but I always considered myself more of a cosmopolitan.”

“A friend of mine always says he’s a citizen of the world,” the architect said softly.

“But you aren’t?”

“No, not me. I mean I don’t care much about the differences of nationality or ethnicity but I just feel like home is where your family is. The family you chose for yourself. People you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. ”

“Well, I have to admit you’re a surprise.”

Courfeyrac laughed. “Why that?”

“Well, I suppose it's a stereotype but until now I’ve only encountered quite pragmatic and very factual architects, Monsieur Courfeyrac.”

 

Enjolras almost fell over his own feet when he spun around.

Courfeyrac just stood there, frozen in shock. Enjolras had never seen the architect speechless. A small smile played around the corner of the other person’s mouth.

Enjolras hectically looked around in the room.

Combeferre and Feuilly seemed to have noticed something was off. The man with the dreadlocks still stood at the left entrance of the room. He could have heard something, what if-

“Don’t worry Monsieur Enjolras, Bahorel belongs to me.”

He could hear Feuilly suck in a breath. He and Combeferre had come closer, Courfeyrac still didn’t move, mouth hanging slightly open.

Enjolras tried to compose himself but the chemist was faster.

“It’s an honour to meet you,” he said and Prouvraire turned to him by rolling around their wheelchair and offered a slender hand, “Likewise, Monsieur Combeferre. And please call me Jehan.”

Courfeyrac blinked a few times.

They shook hands before Jehan turned to Feuilly and then to Enjolras.

He couldn’t help but examine his opposite more closely now that they weren’t just – oh god, just one of Courfeyrac’s flirts but the most powerful person in the dream sharing business.

 

A silent aura of calmness yet power surrounded Jehan now that Enjolras chose to pay attention to it. They were charismatic with sharp features and still light brown eyes seemed friendly and warm. There was an underlying strength behind the neat, elegant appearance even though Enjolras wasn’t quite sure if that thing of a cardigan they were wearing could be considered fashionable.

And yet they were so _young,_ Enjolras couldn’t help but think, probably barely older than twenty, and seemed _fragile_ in a way, like porcelain that could break any second.

They weren’t at all what Enjolras had expected and he probably thought like the rest of his team as well.

“I’m very sorry for causing you the trouble of coming here,” Jehan said, “I know the risks are high these days but I was thinking you might want to settle this as fast as possible and recently my time has been incredibly occupied with keeping Montparnasse out of trouble.”

“Why is he in trouble?” Feuilly asked.

“He left the business. There are a lot of people looking for him now that he isn’t under the protection of your team anymore.”

“It was his decision to leave,” Enjolras said.

“And I won’t question it,” Jehan simply stated and the warmth in their eyes disappeared for a moment being replaced by something harder that brought Enjolras back the awareness of who he was facing. “Loyalty is a concept as honourable as it is dangerous, Monsieur Enjolras. Montparnasse has upset a lot of people by his decision of being loyal to you. And I will do everything within my power to keep him safe from those people.”

They rolled toward the benches and beckoned them to sit down. “We are very grateful for your help,” Feuilly started, “but to be honest, and no offense, we’re not quite sure why you do that. It being a favour Parnasse seems a bit…”

“Simple,” Combeferre ended.

Jehan smiled and didn’t seem offended at all. “Oh, the reason is even simpler. I have been keeping an eye on your team for a very long time now.”

“Since when?” Enjolras asked and he caught Combeferre’s scolding look given the sharp tone in his voice. Jehan seemed quite likeable and actually honest and just didn’t stop smiling. The broad man at the other end of the room leaned against the wall and grinned at them cheerfully.

So yes, of course Enjolras was suspicious, he couldn’t help it.

 

“Josh Harrison,” Jehan said.

Enjolras felt like someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over him.

“Josh Harrison?” Feuilly repeated confused and Combeferre explained, miraculously staying calm, “It was about six years ago. Josh Harrison was a corrupt Canadian Politician. He was one of our first jobs. At that point we weren’t even working with a point man. We started looking about half a year later.”

They had made the mistake of overlooking an important detail in another case what almost got them caught. That’s when they had decided to search for a point man and they hadn’t had to wait a long time. Once they’d spread the rumour it took Feuilly four days to show up at the doorstep of a hotel in Melbourne they were staying even though they did their very best to hide all their traces.

It kind of replaced the job interview.

 

“I believe in your cause,” Jehan simply said, “I believe what you are doing is right. And good. It is simple as that. I would have helped even if Parnasse didn’t ask me to. Just as I did before.”

“Before?” Combeferre repeated. 

“Oh fuck.” Feuilly paled. “The flight number.”

When no one seemed to know what he was talking about he blushed and explained, “When you were looking for a point man I had very little indications but I hacked an old e-mail account from which Courf had sent an application for an internship when he was fifteen and there was a file with a code that took me about to days two decipher but in the end it turned out to be the number of your flight to Melbourne. From there it was easy to check cameras and get your location and wow, I always thought you had made some kind of riddle to see who’s the fastest but you never mentioned it. It was you, wasn’t it?”

Jehan shrugged nonchalantly. “They needed a point man. I made sure they got the best.”

Courfeyrac who had been unusually silent said, “The student who ran into the Interpol guy.” It was the first thing he said now obviously having recovered from his previous shock.

Jehan beamed. “That is actually an incredibly funny story.”

“And Parnasse?” Enjolras asked as he tried to process what he just heard.

Jehan shook his head. “Not at first. I got in contact with him later. He had valuable information about his former employee.”

Feuilly frowned. “He never told us about them.”

“Then I won’t do that as well.”

Slowly Enjolras started to believe Jehan when they said they wanted to support their cause. He didn’t trust them, he probably never would but his rationality was soothed enough to rank the escape plans in the back of his mind as unnecessary, well, the ones that involved Prouvraire.

They were in Paris after all.  

“We, for our part, are grateful for your help,” Enjolras said, “hopefully we can convince you that our team is fitting for…”

“Oh, you already convinced me, Monsieur Enjolras,” Jehan interrupted him.

“Good,” he responded, maybe a little bit coolly, and ignored Feuilly rolling his eyes.

“So, the reason why we are here,” Combeferre prompted. 

 

“Grantaire,” Jehan simply said, “his name is Grantaire. And I assure you that he’s the very best in his profession.”

 

“If he’s the best why isn’t he working for anyone then?” Enjolras wanted to know sceptically and Jehans’ brown eyes darted to him.

“He _is_ the best. Only that he officially has been dead for the last three years due to a miscalculation on my behalf; he had no fault at all and it was the best way to make sure of his safety.”

“Hopefully we won’t put his safety in danger,” Feuilly said frowning.

“You won’t. Neither his nor yours. I made sure of that. Once we’re done here, Cosette will provide you with all the necessary information you need. The only thing I have left to say about Grantaire is that he is exceptional. It might take some time to warm up to him and the other way round but I don’t doubt-” They were interrupted by a ringing mobile phone. Their elegant brows furrowed.

“My apologies but I have to take this” they said absently and fished a blackberry out of the pocket of their pants.

Enjolras looked at Combeferre who shrugged.

“Joly?” Jehan answered their phone and listened for some moments. “I see,” they said, their mouth a thin line.

They hung up and beckoned the broad man who had been standing at the other end of the room for the whole time to leave. He nodded and went out quickly.

“Gentlemen,” Jehan turned back to them with a crooked smile, “you seem to have a talent to attract intelligence agencies like light the flies.”

Enjolras saw Feuilly tense in the corner of his eye. He couldn’t say they hadn’t been planning for a situation like this but he could have gone well without it.

“My secretary just let me know that Interpol has agents on its way here.” Jehan looked down at the watch around their slender wrist. “They are 17 minutes to early which means the actual plan has to be shortened a little but don’t worry. Bahorel and Cosette will make sure you’ll get your forger and your way out of the city. I am very sorry to end our conversation that abruptly but I guess you understand the necessity of it.”

Under any other circumstances Enjolras would have been out of the building in less than a minute but the way Jehan stayed absolutely calm made him decide that they probably had a much more secure plan than him. It took approximately two seconds to make eye contact with everyone else to see that they agreed.

“We’ll do what you need us to do,” Combeferre assured and Jehan nodded.

“Cosette is waiting outside. She and Bahorel will take you to meet Grantaire. I know you first need to make sure that he fits into your team but it’s better to do that anywhere but here. They’ll come with you until everything is cleared.”

“What about you?” Courfeyrac asked and Jehan smiled up at him.

“If Interpol had anything on me they could put me behind bars for five lifetimes, yet here I am,” they said with a shrug and a barely contained grin, “and now you better leave. It’s been a pleasure to meet you. I hope it won’t be the last time.”

They said their hurried goodbyes. Enjolras left last.

“Thank you,” he said.   

Jehan bowed their head slightly. “You’re welcome.”

And then Enjolras hurried out, leaving Jehan whistling quietly in the wheel chair behind. When he turned around one last time they were looking at the paintings again, hands folded over their book and smiled.

 

***


	5. Part I. Enjolras V/VII

 

V/VIII

 

Only a few people walked around in the foyer of the museum and no one paid much attention to the group of four men hurrying out.

As soon as they were outside again Cosette appeared next to Enjolras, a confused looking Marius by her side.

 

He had totally forgotten about the young man.

Damnit. 

Well, that was a problem they had to take care of later.  

 

“Please follow me,” Cosette simply said and led them from the entrance of the museum to the street through a small door, amazingly fast on her high heels. 

"Everything is alright. The plan will proceed as intended. When you see a blue van, prepare yourself to get in there as quick as possible.”

“What exactly is happening here?” Marius asked but Courfeyrac hushed him.

”Marius, when the lady tells you to do something in that tone you better do it.”

Enjolras could see Cosette’s smile.

It was reassuring how all of Jehan’s associates stayed calm and organized. They didn’t beat around the bush. They did their job. It was oddly comforting.

Enjolras still wasn’t hundred percent sure what to make of Jehan but he would have time to think about that later and discuss the matter with the rest of his team because in that moment the van could be seen driving up the road, the broad man from before at the wheel.

It came to stop right in front of Feuilly, the back door opened and one by one they climbed inside and took place on the seats in the storage.

Courfeyrac pulled Marius with him, Cosette waited until Enjolras was inside as well and the car started driving again before the door was even closed again.

 

“Good day, gentlemen.” The man grinned looking at them in the rear-view mirror through the opened window in the wall of the car.

“And the lady,” he added and Cosette rolled her eyes, smiling.

“Quit it, you charmer, and tell me where Joly is.”

“Pont Neuf,” he replied with a smirk, eyes back on the road.

Cosette nodded and started rummaging through her hand bag until she pulled out a black glock 19. 

“Just a safety measure,” she assured and Enjolras couldn't pretend to bother given the 9 mm hidden in the inside pocket of his coat.

 

Someone else wasn’t used to the sight of guns as it seemed.

 

“What? Oh my god, oh my… what?” Marius squeaked and damn, Enjolras had forgotten about him again.

His eyes were wide as he looked at the gun in Cosette’s hand.

Courfeyrac clapped his back. “Oh well, I guess I never told you that we’re actually an international wanted team of dream intruders who basically spend their time stealing information from the minds of dangerous and crappy people to make the world less crappy.”

 

Marius turned to him, blinked, and promptly fainted.

 

“Courfeyrac!” Enjolras shot him his best murderous glance, “Why did you do that?”

It was obvious to him that they had to tell Marius about their actual work, he wasn’t stupid, but they should have talked about the how and not just tell him right away.

Now they had to take care of a passed out man running from fucking Interpol.

Marius had already problems with running in a conscious state.

“Yes, Courfeyrac, couldn’t you have done that a little bit more sensitive?” Feuilly scolded and shook his head.

The architect frowned. “Well, he had to know eventually.”

“Wait, he isn’t part of your team?” Cosette asked disbelievingly.

Combeferre sighed heavily. “Not exactly.”

“He’s a friend,” Courfeyrac provided helpfully and before she could ask another question, Bahorel pulled the car to the side of the road and the door opened automatically again.

 

A young man heaved himself inside with the help of a cane, black hair sticking into every direction and glasses hanging askew on his nose.

“Well, hello everyone,” he nodded with a bright smile and fell back against the closed door when Bahorel started driving again. He found his balance after a moment and straightened his huge green parka that looked about three sizes to big.

His gaze immediately dropped to Marius.

“What happened to him?”

“He fainted,” Courfeyrac provided, “he was a little bit overwhelmed by… well, everything.”

The man who had to be Joly kneeled down next to Marius and started to help him into recovery position with quick, trained movements. “He’ll be fine,” he said after checking pulse and breathing and pulled himself up on his cane. “Who is he again?”

“He’s a friend,” Bahorel called through the small window.

“Right,” Joly nodded, “Friends, of course. I mean - you’re _Les Amis_ after all. By the way, I feel like I have to say that I am a huge fan but that would sound like a teenage girl so I’ll stick to assuring you how I admire the work you’re doing. Oh I’m so happy to say this, I waited so long to tell you in person.”  He beamed.

 

Enjolras blinked.

“Ehm, thanks?” Feuilly said puzzled.

 

Joly sat down next to Courfeyrac when he seemed to remember something.

“Oh, I forget, I should introduce myself properly, I am Joly.” He pointed his cane at Enjolras. “We talked on the phone!”

One by one they introduced themselves and Joly enthusiastically shook hand after hand.

“And that’s Marius,” Combeferre explained with a nod in the young man’s direction. 

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you all. It really is, oh my god, you have no idea. Your reputation precedes you.”

Joly leaned back what seemed a little bit too relaxed for being well, on the run from Interpol and who knew what else and all that.

“We try to be as inconspicuous as possible,” Feuilly said and the other man shrugged.

“I guess that’s kind of difficult when you’re an international wanted group of thieves that steal from peoples’ minds to fight for justice. You have a lot of admirers, including myself, I have to say, but just as many enemies.”

“Only that the enemies are most likely more powerful.”

Joly smiled at the point man and then let his gaze wander over them all. “You shouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating Jehan. They might be trying to act as non-biased as possible but even with their power and influence they’re just human like everyone else.”

“Do a lot of people know who they really are?” Courfeyrac asked curiously.

“I don’t know if anyone knows exactly who they are,” Joly supposed, “There are lots of people who know the quiet young person who writes poems and a lot more know Prouvraire as the person everyone who wants to bring it to something in your business depends on.The number of people who know that they’re both is probably limited to less than a dozen, including you.”

“It’s a gesture of trust that they met with you in person,” Cosette said seriously and Joly nodded enthusiastically.

Cosette then pulled an envelope out of her handbag that she handed Enjolras.

“We have about half an hour to pick up Grantaire, then Bahorel and I will accompany you to London where you can check if he’s fitting for your team. We want to bring you out of the city as fast as possible so we’ll take Jehan’s private jet to avoid airport security since Interpol is looking for you and due to Joly's information they check everyone whose leaving by plane since it’s the fastest option to get away. In the envelope are your plane tickets from London to Athens from where you should be able to go where you want to plus hotel cards in case you want to stay some days.”

Enjolras only nodded his thanks. It was a good plan, fast and inconspicuous, better than something they could have done with their resources.

Not everyone could have a private jet.

“Did I hear private jet?” Courfeyrac asked delighted and Combeferre rolled his eyes good-natured.

“What he wants to say is thank you very much for your help.”

”No! I mean, yes that as well, but firstly I want to say, how freaking awesome is that?”

Bahorel laughed loudly from the front and Joly joined him. “You guys are awesome. Like really. Not only that what you’re doing is so  important. Oh man, I feel like I should like you less since you’ve come to take my best friend away but well, you’re not making it easy.”

“You know Grantaire?” Enjolras head himself asking with surprise because he hadn’t expected that.

The other man nodded. “Oh yes, yes. We’ve been friends for years. We met in Lyon where he had a job before we all came to Paris.”

Before he could ask who "we all" included Bahorel called out, "Terminal!" and the car stopped. “Your designed driver will wait here dutifully until your return.” He grinned.

 

Enjolras didn’t know when he had stopped wondering about that. 

 

Due to the sudden stop of movement Marius stirred and opened an eye.

Joly immediately leaned down and smiled. “See who’s back amongst the living.”

The other man looked confused for a moment but then his eyes found Courfeyrac and he breathed out in relief. “Oh my god that was one crazy dream. I met this absolutely perfect, beautiful girl and suddenly we were in a van and then guns and then…,” he trailed off when he realized his surroundings.

Enjolras had actually expected Marius to maybe faint again but instead he blushed when he looked at Cosette who smiled genuinely, but her cheeks had taken on a rosy colour as well. “You’re quite wonderful yourself,” she smiled.

“Awww.” Courfeyrac bit down onto his bottom lip what he always did when he saw something unbearably cute while Marius and Cosette only had eyes for each other.

 

“Do we really have time for this?”

 

“Enjolras!” the architect snapped. “They were having a moment”

“I am sorry to remind you that we are on the run from god knows how many international agencies, still haven’t got to the reason why we’re here in the first place and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life safe behind bars for nothing. Actually I’d like to avoid that completely.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,” Courfeyrac scowled but stood up, “it screws up your face. You don’t want to get all wrinkly, do you?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes.

Marius had snapped out of his dreamy haze, now looking from Enjolras to Courfeyrac. “Wait…international… what?”

Luckily this time Combeferre choose to be faster than Courfeyrac.

“We’ll explain this to you later in detail Marius. Right now you have to trust us that it’s the best for your safety to do exactly what we tell you.” His voice was calm but firm, no room for objection.

 

To Enjolras surprise and admittedly even respect Marius’s confused and panicked expression turned completely sober while Combeferre was speaking. He pressed his lips together and simply nodded in return. 

 

“I can take care of him, if you want to,” Bahorel said. Marius eyes flickered to the broad man behind the wheel who still hadn’t stopped grinning. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

“I think it’s the best if he’s not coming with us, to keep him out of any potential danger,” Feuilly said, “And if they should be coming it is better when he’s not with us. I believe Bahorel is capable of protecting him.”

“Thanks ginger dude whose name I don’t know.”

“Feuilly,” the point man offered.

Bahorel laughed. “Yeah no.”

Feuilly shot him a murderous glance.

The other man winked.

 

Enjolras looked over at Marius. Courfeyrac’s hand rested on the young man’s shoulder. “I’m going to stay too,” he said. “I brought him into this, I won’t leave him alone,” he added before Enjolras could protest.

“Everything is still going according to plan. There are no reasons to assume that anything will go wrong and I will keep following my orders. I come with you,” Cosette stated even though she kept glancing at Marius. 

Joly looked through the round and just shrugged before he pushed the door open.

They had parked right in front of a typical Parisian corner house with a lovely beige façade and iron balconies. Joly took the keys to the huge front door out of the pocket of his huge parker and beckoned them to follow him.

The stairs lead into the third floor. Joly stopped at the second door on the left sight.

A colourful doormat lay on the ground with bold bright letter on it forming the word BIENVENUE.

The young man’s hand hovered over the doorknob for a second; he bit down onto his lip as if he wanted to say something but the moment was gone in the blink of an eye so Enjolras wasn’t sure if he hadn’t only imagined it.

He still felt unsure but he also knew that this was the best possible option they had.

Despite the one where everything would have stayed as it had been but this wasn’t going to happen anymore.

It was how a business worked. Things changed.

It happened but it wouldn’t keep them from going on.

 

“Welcome to our humble home,” Joly joked lightly and opened the door so they could enter. Enjolras looked down the hallway once more before he followed Joly and his friends inside.

They were in a living room. Bright and friendly, with overcrowding bookshelves and paintings on the walls.

 

It was about a second after the door closed behind him when he felt the barrel of a gun against the back of his head.

 

Before Enjolras could even begin to reach to the pocket of his coat, he heard the release of a safety cash and a rough voice right behind him.

  
“One more move and I shoot you.”

 

***


	6. Part I. Enjolras VI/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guns! Shouting! Excitement?! Enjoy!

 

 

VI/VII

 

 

A lot of things happened at once when the voice behind Enjolras spoke up.

 

Combeferre spun around, immediately drawing his gun, cold composure instead of shock written all over his face. Cosette managed to pull another glock out of her handbag, aiming one at the person behind Enjolras, the second at the chemist. Joly raised his hands in the same moment as Feuilly levelled his gun at Cosette.

 

“Oh god, stop it!”

 

Only a blink after Joly’s shout a door to their left opened and a woman stepped out in her pyjamas, black ringlets sticking into every direction, one of her weapons aiming at Combeferre the other at Feuilly who turned to her while the chemist didn’t move and Cosette pointed the gun that had been aimed at Combeferre back at the point man.

 

“For heaven’s sake, stop it!” Joly repeated, his voice about an octave higher.

 

A tall, black man tumbled out of the same door as the woman, without a gun, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a confused look on his face.

Enjolras couldn’t keep up anymore when Feuilly drew a second gun to point it at the new arrival and everyone turned and shifted and the metal that was pressed against the back of his head never moved.

 

“Why are there people with guns in our apartment, Joly?” the black guy asked slowly raising his hands carefully. He seemed confused but surprisingly not shocked or panicked. “Again?”

The other man didn’t answer but shouted, “Oh goddamn, stop it everybody. No one’s shooting anyone here!”

 

For a moment nothing happened.

 

The first one to slowly lower his guns was Feuilly. He took his fingers off the triggers and kneeled to put the weapons on the ground, his eyes resolute. Cosette did the same but with much more reluctance.

Combeferre and the woman didn’t move.

“Chetta,” Joly said, his eyes pleading. “Everything is alright. They’re here because Jehan sent them.”

Slowly, very slowly she leaned down and put them on the ground, her eyes never leaving Combeferre, who still stood frozen. He wasn’t looking at Enjolras but at whoever stood behind him, his brown eyes cold.

Enjolras took a shallow breath.

“Ferre,” he tried to put as much calmness in his voice as possible even though his whole body was tense, his heat beating rapidly in his chest, “Ferre, put the gun down.”

The chemist’s eyes flickered to him. Enjolras managed a minimal nod even though the barrel of the weapon dug uncomfortably into his scalp but it was enough to make Combeferre take his finger from the trigger eventually and raise his hand.

“Chetta,” Joly’s voice sounded sharply and the woman rolled her eyes and pulled a third gun out of the pocket of her pyjama pants and put it down on the floor.

Joly turned to Enjolras but he looked behind him, softly, his hands in the air, soothingly.

 

“Put the gun down,” he said slowly.

 

Something moved and the pressure decreased a little but not completely.

 

The black guy threw his arms in the air with an annoyed grunt, “Oh for fuck’s sake Grantaire, put the stupid gun down.”

 

One or two tense seconds later, Enjolras heart was beating too fast to concentrate on that, the pressure at the back of his head was gone.

He forced himself to let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding and even though every muscle was itching him to reach for his own gun he slowly, no abrupt movements, turned around to face the person behind him.

 

The man was a couple of inches smaller than him and the first thing Enjorlas saw were deep, blue-green eyes staring right back at him from under a mob of unruly black curls, with a hard and calculating expression that disappeared the very next second.

For a moment they looked baffled, then, following the crooked smile of thin lips under an equally crooked nose, the man’s expression turned softer, friendlier and even a tiny bit apologetic.

“Sorry man,” he said casusally as if he wasn’t in a room full of people who had been about to blow each others’ brains out mere seconds ago. He shrugged with one shoulder. “We weren’t really expecting visitors. You know how it is, no hard feelings, right?”

 

Enjolras arched an eyebrow.

 

 

The other man didn’t seemed to care and put his gun onto the wardrobe next to the entrance door obviously for the lack of a better place because he was only wearing a pair of low hanging grey pyjama pants and nothing else.

Yes, he was shirtless.

Yes, Enjolras had noticed that.

He had also noticed the broadness of his shoulders, the sharpness of his collar bones as well as the defined muscles of his arms, chest and abdominal, the trail of black hair leading into the waistband of his pants.

 

His eyes snapped back up at the man’s face where the smile had been replaced by an amused smirk that even Courfeyrac would have been impressed by.

“Right,” Enjolras said coolly and the smile faltered a little.

 

“You know what, why don’t we just start this over?” the woman with the ringlets suggested resolutely. “Does anyone want coffee?”

“Yes, please.” Feuilly nodded enthusiastically and the woman even smiled when she disappeared into what Enjolras guessed was the kitchen.

 

The man who had continued staring at Enjolras eventually turned to Cosette and casually walked past him. Maybe walking was the wrong word. Sauntering might have been more accurate.

Enjolras noticed –completely objectively – that yes, those were tattoos on his shoulders and back, alright.

 

“Cosette, love, do you think we’ll ever meet without you pointing a gun at my head?”

The young woman rolled her eyes but hugged him quickly obviously in no way affected by his lack of clothing. “I believe there’s always hope, Grantaire.”

 

Now that Enjolras wasn’t distracted by a gun pressed against his head anymore the name hit him like a ton of bricks.

 

“Well, _someone_ has to be the optimist I guess,” Grantaire shrugged. “What does Jehan want now?”

“Oh, _Jehan_ doesn’t want anything. Not this time. I’m just here because they asked me to accompany these young men to you.”

Cosette nodded towards Enjolras, Feuilly and Combeferre.

Grantaire turned around, one dark eyebrow raised and gave them a quick once-over, his blue and green and piercing eyes eventually settling on Enjolras again.

“And what do these young men want from me?”

“We want to offer you a job,” Enjolras answered.

 

Grantaire frowned and Enjolras saw how his shoulders tensed almost unnoticeably, not that he paid extra attention to the man’s shoulders or anything.

 

Combeferre cleared his throat and Grantaire’s eyes darted away from Enjolras. “We’re Les Amis de L’ABC, an independent-,” the chemist started calmly and was almost immediately cut off when Grantaire snorted.

Combeferre arched an eyebrow but didn’t continue.

“Sorry but you certainly don’t have to explain to me who you are when you start like that.”

Grantaire ran a hand over his face – long fingers, almost elegant – and let out a laugh that sounded much more harsh than happy.

“Joly?” He raised his voice and the other man who Enjolras had distantly noticed leaving for the kitchen as well guiltily stuck his head back into the living room.

Grantaire looked at him expectantly. “When exactly did you plan on telling me that you invited _Les Amis_ over for coffee?”

 

“We’re not here for coffee.” Enjolras tried to sound calm and also felt the urge to hit Feuilly when the point man snorted at his words no matter how much he admired the man.

Grantaire turned his attention away from Joly who simply raised his shoulders apologetically and back to Enjolras.

“Well, good. I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed because Bossuet ate the rest of the cake yesterday.”

Enjolras stared at him and Grantaire looked back with a smile that was downright mocking.

 

In that moment the woman came back from the kitchen with a tray full of cups, balancing it perfectly on one hand.

 

“Quit the bullshit, R,” she said then turned to Enjolras, “And you sweetie, I don’t care if you’re not here for coffee, you get some anyway and now you all stop standing around like you missed the god damn train and sit you’re asses down on the sofa already. And yes, you have enough time because I wouldn’t say that if Interpol was standing at our doorstep,” she added clearly addressing Enjolras who had been about to say exactly that.

He still wasn’t all that keen on sitting down and drinking coffee when an international agency was looking for them but no one except him seemed to be concerned about that. Even Feuilly and Combeferre sat down onto the sofa gracefully accepting a cup the woman handed him.

“You better do what she says,” the tall black guy grinned cheerfully and sat down onto one of the armchairs. “Cosette here certainly wouldn’t let you do this if you were out of your time frame so don’t worry, man.”

The young woman smiled at Enjolras and he eventually sat down next to Combeferre.

The tall man nodded contently. “My name’s Bossuet by the way. Just if you guys were interested. The lady’s Musichetta. Joly you know and I suppose you heard of Grantaire here since there’s that whole job offering thing going on.”

Grantaire who sat on another armchair with a cup of coffee that Musichetta had handed him frowned.

“Did you know too?”

Bossuet shook his head. “I had no idea man.”

“Jehan thought it would be better to…,” Joly started then paused searching for the right words.

“To not give me a heads-up because I really love surprise guests?” Grantaire suggested. “Yeah, because that worked out perfectly. Sorry ‘bout that again,” he added directed at Enjolras.

“It’s alright,” he murmured from behind his cup of coffee but he reluctantly had to admit he meant it this time. He probably would have done the same thing what made him even more surprised that Jehan obviously hadn’t told Grantaire about the job. “We didn’t know that Jehan didn’t inform you. They knew we needed a forger for our team and insisted that you are the best possible choice. Of course we don’t expect you to immediately agree to work with us if you didn’t even know about our –”

 

“Oh, I do agree.”

 

Enjolras blinked.

“You do?”

“He doesn’t,” the woman, Musichetta, cut in before Grantaire could stop her.

He rolled his eyes. “Chetta –”

“I’m not making decisions for you, R, but you have to at least think about this first. Do I have to remind you of what happened the last time Jehan thought you were the best for a job?”

“Of course you don’t,” Grantaire said sharply.

Musichetta didn’t seem intimidated by his tone. “Good, because you don’t owe them anything.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Not Jehan.”

She sighed and shook her head exasperatedly.

Bossuet then laughed again what surprisingly really broke some of the tension in the air. He turned to Enjolras, Combeferre and Feuilly.

“Don’t take it personal, guys. Chetta’s just sceptical in general.”

Musichetta huffed. “Well, I’d be dead if I wasn’t.”

 “We understand,” Combeferre said calmly taking a sip from his coffee.

“Do you work for Jehan too?” Feuilly asked her curiously.

“Of course I do.”

“And officially?”

A grin spread over her face. “Interpol.”

Enjolras tried not to suck in a breath of air but the way Musichetta’s smile widened he knew she had noticed. Or it was just because of the way Feuilly’s mouth hung open.

He felt a mix of respect for Jehan and uneasiness because the fact that they had managed to get a mole inside Interpol made it just painfully obvious again how much influence they had, how much they would be able to make things difficult for them if they wanted to.

 

Bossuet cleared his throat. “I study law.”

Grantaire snorted and Joly who had sat down, well, on Bossuet’s lap rolled his eyes.

“You _studied_ law,” the smaller man corrected and Bossuet only shrugged cheerfully.

“I would have been an awesome lawyer.”

“Sorry to break it to you honey, but you’re far too much of a softie,” Musichetta said but her tone was unmistakably fond.  

Bossuet reached around Joly and took her hand. “You sure _I_ am the softie?”

She rolled her eyes but smiled.

 

Grantaire sighed heavily. “Excuse my sickeningly lovestruck friends. They sometimes forget that there are other people existing in their direct surroundings.”

“Don’t worry,” Feuilly said dryly, “We’re used to it.”

 

“But I’m afraid we don’t have time for this,” Combeferre laughed and Enjolras could have sworn he was blushing.

“We’re still in our time frame,” Cosette said sweetly.

Grantaire huffed. “And what’s the rest of Jehan’s great plan?”

“You agree to come with us,” she started, “You pack your things. We take Jehan’s jet to London. You all get to know each other a bit. They do whatever they need to make sure you fit into their team and off you go.”

“Fair enough.”

Grantaire stood up putting his cup on the coffee table. “Well, better get to step two then.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but frown at his crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You don’t have to decide,” he heard himself saying, “I won’t say it wouldn’t be disadvantageous for us but no one should make such an important decision rashly and without having time to consider their options.”

“Thank you.” Musichetta looked at Enjolras with an almost soft expression. She opened her mouth to say something and obviously considered for a moment to continue but eventually asked, “You don’t have to tell us but… may I ask for your names?”

 

And he really hadn’t expected the question.

Enjolras actually hadn’t realized how neither of them had asked them yet and the silent acceptance of the possibility that they didn’t want to share their real names without wanting to know why was somehow surprisingly comforting.

 

“Enjolras,” he said. From the corner of his eye he caught the chemist and the point man smiling then continued, “These are Combeferre and Feuilly. Courfeyrac and our friend Marius are waiting in the car.”

Musichetta acknowledged that with a simple nod and a smile.

 

“ _Enjolras_ then,” Grantaire said, “Jehan wouldn’t have made the effort of sending you to me if they weren’t absolutely sure I was going to say yes no matter what. So there is no need to worry all nobly about my consent.”

There was nothing of the seriousness of his eyes to be found in the sarcastic tone of his voice.

Musichetta frowned. “You don’t have to do this for Jehan, R.”

“I know. I won’t.”

 “You don’t have to do this for anyone.”

Joly and Bossuet shared a look that clearly showed how they agreed with her. But Grantaire wasn’t looking at them.

“I know,” he said, his eyes fixed on Enjolras, piercing and bright, and Enjolras didn’t look away.

Maybe because he was too stubborn to be the first to break the eye contact.

Maybe because he didn’t want to.

When someone cleared their throat he couldn’t have been able to tell who looked away first.

 

“Now that we clarified that, we have exactly twelve minutes left before we need to get going again,” Cosette stated looking down at her watch.

 

Grantaire’s face changed completely when he grinned. “Well, I better put a shirt on then.”

  
He stood up and Enjolras took a big gulp of hot coffee that burned down his throat in the hope it would just take any opposing thoughts with it.    

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're now at the point where all the very important characters has been introduced and it took only, well, six chapters. I hope you liked it so far and thank you all for your commenting and leaving kudos, that means the world to me. ♥


	7. Part I. Enjolras VII/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: A so called PASIV is a "Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous" device. So it's what you control the process of shared dreaming with, how long, how stable, etc. The Somnacin is interjected intravenously hence the name.  
> Totems are personal objects that help to tell dreams from reality because they work differently in a dream.  
> Also projections are the people that fill the dreams of the subject and they can become dangerous if they notice intrudors.

VII/VII

 ***

 

Courfeyrac was quietly talking to Marius while Enjolras tried to get comfortable a couple of seats away from everyone to think.  

Jehan's private jet was big enough for that. 

Only Enjolras couldn’t help but let his eyes stray away from the clouds and landscapes that he could see through the window, and over to Cosette and Grantaire who were having a conversation at the other side of the jet next to an honest to good espresso machine.

Enjolras couldn’t hear what they were talking about and the forger stood half way facing away from him so lip reading was out of question as well what made him focus on the man’s body language.

 

He wasn’t _staring_ per se.

Just… analyzing.

 

He noticed that Grantaire seemed to talk as much with his hands as he did with his mouth even though he was trying to tone it down just like his voice. His smile seemed natural and relaxed as well as his entire posture and someone who wasn’t looking closely would have probably overlooked how still sometimes his jaw tightened slightly or his right shoulder twitched like he was about to duck or turn because all the while that smile stayed in place.

He was too focused on Grantaire to notice soon enough that Cosette had looked up and when their eyes met she smiled and turned to the forger again saying something that Enjolras couldn’t make out.

He pretended to look out of the window again when steps came closer about half a minute later and Grantaire unceremoniously flopped down onto the seat next to Enjolras.

 

“You know, you could just ask the questions you have instead of trying to stare the answers out of me. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at a job interview?”

 

Enjolras frowned and turned to look at him, blue and green eyes looking back. “I wasn’t staring. I was being attentive.”

Grantaire shrugged. “Whatever makes you sleep at night.”

Enjolras chose to simply ignore that.

“How do you know Jehan?” he asked instead.

The other man nodded as if he had expected the question. “They found me when they needed a forger for a job about six years ago. I’ve been in the business before that for like three years by then, doing small jobs here and there and Jehan decided that I was exactly what they were looking for." 

“Because you were the best?”

 “Did Jehan say that?”

“No,” Enjolras replied truthfully, "they said you _are_ the best.”

The forger smiled. “Of course they did.”

“I have to admit I can’t really believe them.”

“And how comes that?”

“They also said you were officially dead for the past three years so I take it you haven’t been working in the field since then.”

He tried to remain a neutral expression when Grantaire’s smile turned into the sarcastic smirk that kind of made Enjolras wanted to wipe it off his face … somehow.

“In the field? Are we agents now?” He asked but didn’t even leave time for Enjolras to reply. “Does it matter how long I haven’t been actively working if I can still do everything you need me to?”

“I guess we will see,” Enjolras simply said.

Grantaire laughed quietly and leaned back in his seat to get more comfortable what made Enjolras realize how tense he was sitting in his place himself.

“Yeah, I guess we will, that's what you're trying to find out at last. Alright, next question.”

“You said you know who we are.”

“That is not really a question, is it?”

Enjolras suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “What do you know about us?”

“What everyone knows about you. When you hear the name Les Amis no one in our business is clueless what that means. You’re known. At least what you do.”

“And what would you say is it what we do?”

The smile on other man’s face stretched into a grin when he answered, “Oh you know, save the world and all that, fight the good fight. Justice, peace, freedom. Long live America?”

 

Enjolras blinked.

“We’re French.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow “Really? With a name like that? Wouldn’t have guessed.”

Oh god, he was _infuriating._  

“Are you serious right now?”

“Does it sound like I’m serious for you?”

Enjolras held back an equally snarky reply only with difficulty. “It sounds like you’re _sceptical_.”

“Just sceptical? Huh. Guess I have to work on that one then.”

“God, you obviously don’t believe in what we are doing.”

Grantaire simply shrugged. “You don’t need me to. You need me to work.”

“We also need to be able to trust you. And I don’t.”

“You do trust Jehan though,” he said obviously not affected by Enjolras’s statement.

“No, I don’t. We only contacted Jehan because our forger said that they would be able to find a replacement for him. And we did trust _his_ judgement.”

Grantaire huffed. “Yeah. Still don’t understand how that happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Parnasse isn’t really the guy who’s inspiring the most confidence, is he?”

“You know Montparnasse?” Enjolras tried not to let his impatience show when the other man didn’t answer immediately.

His shoulder twitched. "Yes, I do know Montparnasse. Or _did_ know, we haven’t seen each other since, well, since he joined your team. We worked together before that.” He paused before he added the second sentence. It was minimal but Enjolras noticed nonetheless.

“He never mentioned you.”

“Oh, I bet he didn’t,” Grantaire murmured then sighed and added a lot more understandable and a lot more sarcastic, “We didn’t exactly part on the best terms. But I always admired his _set of skills_.”

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. “He is an excellent forger.”

“That he is.”

“Do you think you can follow in his footsteps?”

“I can do everything he did and better.”

“Big words for someone who’s been out of business for the last three years.”

The look Grantaire gave Enjolras in return was challenging and a small smile ghosted over his lips.  

“I guess you’ll see.”

 

 

***

 

 

L.O.N.D.O.N. – U.N.I.T.E.D. K.I.N.G.D.O.M.

 

 

“Well, that is so _very_ inconspicuous,” Courfeyrac noted when they got out of the car that Bahorel had been driving from the small private airport into the city.

They stood in front of a hotel that could have easily passed as a small castle.

The architect shamelessly ogled the doorman’s bright red uniform and nudged Enjolras. “Hey, what would you think if I get you one of those for your birthday?”

Enjolras regarded him with a look that hopefully showed _exactly_ what he would think.

“Alright, alright,” Courfeyrac said with his hands raised but didn’t hide his grin.

“Isn’t it quite risky to stay in such a busy place?” Combeferre asked what Enjolras had been thinking. Feuilly looked like he was already calculating all the possibilities of how to get out of the building before they even stepped in.

“Jehan took the necessary precautions,” Cosette answered.

“Did they bribe all the staff of this thing?” Courfeyrac joked.

  
“They own it.”

Grantaire laughed and Cosette’s resolute poker face slipped into an amused smile.

 

“Of course they do,” Combeferre sighed and Courfeyrac grinned and tried to put his arm around the chemist’s shoulder what turned out to be difficult due to their height difference so he settled on putting it around Combeferre’s waist and dragged him towards the entrance. “Come one, you can’t possibly mind five stars. Really, maybe they have caviar!”

“Now why would that change my mind?”

“Well, _I_ like caviar, you philistine.”

“Fair enough.”

Enjolras looked at Feuilly who simply rolled his eyes.

 

They followed Cosette with Marius close by her side. Enjolras was still surprised that the young man wasn’t showing any signs of panic anymore. He looked tired, yes, and confused from time to time but calm when he wasn’t talking to Cosette what seemed to turn him into a blushing teenager.

Courfeyrac complimented the doorman on his top hat in passing.

 

The room Cosette lead them to – still in her high heels and Enjolras’s respect for her was growing from minute to minute – was not the hotel suite he had expected but a small room perfectly equipped for their purposes with comfortable chairs, ready-to-use PASIV devices and four locks on the door.

Enjolras was pleasantly surprised while Courfeyrac theatrically complained about the lack of minibar and jacuzzi what had everyone smiling at least a little bit and lightened the mood considerably.

The tension didn’t disappear.

It was a difference to share dreams with a mark that didn’t know about them and someone _they_ didn’t know anything about but had to work with.

Maybe.

Enjolras wasn’t simply going to take Jehan’s word for granted all together.  It might cost more effort and time they didn’t have to find a forger on their own but it wasn’t worth the danger of working with one who didn’t know how to do his job.

They had been lucky with Montparnasse.

If Grantaire was about as good as him Enjolras certainly wasn’t going to withdraw the offer.

 

“So,” Grantaire prompted as he flopped down onto one of the chairs, needles and tubes already hanging over the armrest. “What’s next?”

They had planned this ahead. Testing a possible new team member during action had been unanimously declined after the last disaster.

“You, me and Courfeyrac will be going into his dream,” Enjolras explained.

“Location?” Grantaire asked thoughtfully instead of what he was supposed to do and took Enjolras by surprise.

Again.

“Oh, you’ll be seeing the absolutely amazing alternate version of my future as a nightclub owner and... it’s going to be _awesome_ ,” Courfeyrac beamed and Grantaire smiled slightly and nodded, the _opposite_ of surprised.

Enjolras had wanted the architect to design a tyical night club for this particular task. Lots of people, mirrors, lights. Lots of distractions to put it differently.

He was certain Grantaire knew that too.

 

“And who am I supposed to do?” he asked casually, smirking, looking right at Enjolras.

Enjolras blinked. 

Courfeyrac didn’t even have the decency to hide his absolutely shameless grin. “I’m afraid you have to do me,” he said with a wink at both of them and Enjolras kind of wanted to smack him over the head.

“What Courfeyrac _means_ is that you are going to impersonate him on a first stage dream layer.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “You sure that’s what he meant?”

 

Well, Enjolras _wasn’t_ sure who he wanted to smack now because it was quite a neck-and-neck race when Courfeyrac said, “Oh, I already like him, Enj, can we keep him?”

“We’ll see about that,” Enjolras replied with all the composure he could muster what wasn’t that much.

He was confused by himself because he usually had more control over his behaviour but well, it had been a very, very long day.

He turned to Grantaire. “We certainly don’t expect you to convince me of being Courfeyrac since we’ve know each other for almost fifteen years but we do expect you to do you’re best. You have half an hour before we start.”

Enjolras waited for Grantaire to nod.

“We can start now.”

 

Oh for fuck’s sake.

 

“Now?” Enjolras repeated incredulously.

“Sure.”

Combeferre who had kneeled down to set the PASIV device looked questioningly back and forth between them.

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. “Well, if you _insist_." Oh, he could do sarcastic as well. "Courf, as we agreed,” he said briskly and sat down onto the armchair next to Grantaire. Courfeyrac wisely stayed quiet and only nodded when he sat down as well.

Combeferre pushed his glasses up his nose before he inserted the needles into each of their arms with quick, trained movements. Grantaire didn’t flinch. Neither did Enjolras. 

“When you’re in the dream your timeframe will contain-”

“Fifteen minutes,” Enjolras interrupted.

The chemist at least didn’t show any signs of surprise. He held Enjolras’s gaze for a moment before he turned back to the device and changed the setting without protest.

“Fifteen minutes. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

The last Enjolras saw was Grantaire sinking back into the cushions.

If the forger was that sure of himself he damn well wouldn’t need and certainly wouldn't get the planned hour to prove it.

Enjolras eyelids threatened to close and he didn’t fight it.

 

 

***

 

 

Some horrible techno-remix butchering a Lady Gaga song sounded through the bathroom.

The walls were daubed with scribbled phone numbers, names and smiley faces as well as unidentifiable body fluids that no one would want to inspect more closely.

 

Enjolras for once cursed Courfeyrac’s incredible enthusiasm for details.

 

He regarded himself in the sticky mirror and leaned forward to run his fingers through his hair. When he looked back up his eyes were framed by a thin line of black kohl and mascara, his lips a darker shade of red and his blonde curls artfully tousled, not like he had just rolled out of bed. The dark rings under his eyes were gone and Enjolras smirked at his changed image.

He might not have the greatest forging skills let alone talent but he did know some of the basics.

He felt like he wouldn’t like the reason why he chose to show those now if he thought about it a little bit longer so he ignored the sinking feeling in is stomach and reached down into the pocket of his jeans and let his finger glide over the edge of the small hour glass there, his totem.

He knew he was in a dream, Courfeyrac’s dream, Courfeyrac’s design.

Just like they had planned it.

Enjolras nodded at his reflection in the mirror, adjusted his white v-neck shirt and stepped out of the bathroom.

 

The music was suddenly about five times louder and thrumming in his ears, the white, blinking light effects illuminated tangled messes of bodies on the dance floor and hurt in his eyes.

The club smelled like sweat and alcohol and sex.

For a moment he was seventeen again and making his way to the bar, avoiding the masses and sticking to the side of the crowd, walking around laughing drunks and couples feverishly making out, almost taking each other right there on the dance floor and he couldn’t say he was surprised that much, he was in Courfeyrac’s subconscious after all and he probably had a field day with this.

He spotted the architect sitting on a bar stool with a sparkly drink in his hand and a loosened tie around his neck. If it happened to be the forger instead of Courfeyrac himself Enjolras really had to admit that it was impressive how perfectly right he had gotten the quirk of the architect’s mouth, his whole posture and demeanour at least from the distance.

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes at something the person next to him said and he looked almost fond.

Enjolras knew that look, he had seen it lots of times directed at…

Courfeyrac’s eyes widened when he saw him.

Enjolras stopped dead in his tracks when the other person turned around.

He blinked a few times but what he saw didn’t change.

 

Looking back at him was … Enjolras himself.

 

No, it wasn’t _him_ but that goddamn forger looking just like him. Exactly like him. Red jacket over white shirt, black jeans and chucks. Enjolras was looking at _his_ mouth, _his_ nose, _his_ hair, blonde and tousled, slightly parted on the right side, even his own eyes, like a mirror staring back.

 

That _asshole._

 

And then, then he dared to smirk just a little bit.

Anger flared up in Enjolras’s chest and he practically stomped over to the bar.

Courfeyrac openly stared at him. “Oh my god, that’s _amazing._ ”

Enjolras ignored him but before he could say anything the other Enjolras – no, _Grantaire_ for fuck’s sake – snapped at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Enjolras gaped at him. “What _I’m_ doing? Really?”

Courfeyrac nudged Grantaire’s shoulder and grinned. “Look at that, that’s just incredible.”

“That wasn’t what he was supposed to do,” Enjolras said at the same moment Grantaire spat out, “That wasn’t the plan.”

Courfeyrac seemed confused for a moment, looking back and forth between them. “Wow, alright, that’s just creepy… I love it!” He took a step closer to Enjolras. “Shit, you even got his freckles right, man.”

 

Enjolras was speechless.

 

“I don’t care if he got each hair right,” he, Grantaire, snarled, eyes narrowed and cold, “he didn’t stick to the plan. You had _one_ thing to do.”

“Alright, this is ridiculous!” Enjolras snapped back equally harsh, in just the same tone.

“Ridiculous, really? Is this some sort of game to you?”

“Oh, that’s rich, you-”

“Hey!” Courfeyrac cut in raising his hands calmingly. “Okay, okay, just slow down a little, okay? I don’t think the world or therefore _I_ am not ready for two of you.”

Grantaire as Enjolras crossed his arms and clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles tensed and that Enjolras looked cold and determined without a spark of anything soft in his eyes and Enjolras didn't know what was haplening because Courfeyrac stood right next to him and didn’t even seem concerned or irritated or anything but _used_ to it.

He just continued talking excitedly.

“You know, I think the last time I saw you wearing eyeliner was when we were seventeen.”

“And I hated it,” the other one said.

“How do you even now that?” Enjolras snapped.

He didn’t huff in response or shook his head, only narrowed his eyes just like Enjolras would have done. “Because I know me and you clearly don’t.”

“You don’t –”

“Oh stop it. What are you trying to accomplish here?” he interrupted.

“I could ask you the same thing!”

“If I were you I’d really consider saying _anything_.

“You’re not –”

“What? You? You really want to continue this? Because it is getting, how did you phrase it, ridiculous. You’re just a –”

“Oh god, stop it!”

A few people turned around when Courfeyrac spoke up. He looked concerned by now, nervously eyeing both of them and the people that filled the club, the projections of the architect’s subconscious. “If you don’t tone it down, both of you, this is not going to be pleasant for each of us so just… calm down, would you?”

Enjolras didn’t listen, the words were swallowed up by the sound of music and thoughts in his head.

 _He_ was supposed to be the strong one, he was looking at an image of himself that was strong and cold and cut him off like he was nobody, nothing and left him standing there angry and confused.

That wasn't like him. Enjolras should be the man standing right tin front of Enjolras, had tried his best to become that man for many, many years but it wasn't him. He felt nothing like the man looked like. 

It was... frightening.

But also familiar, strangely so, like he was seventeen again.

God, he knew what it was like to be seventeen and scared.

And insecure.

He hadn't forget what it was like feeling insecure.

But then it was an almost welcoming thought because that feeling, that feeling that he clearly had even though he hated it, he knew it. Part of him.

Not of the man he saw though.

No traces of weakness.

Clenched teeth and tense shoulders looking at Courfeyrac with an indignant but also accepting expression understanding that they shouldn’t draw that much attention to them.

Enjolraswas alright.

Angry, yes.

Annoyed as well.

Shaken, if he had to admit it.

Until…  

Until the other one looked back at him and he could as well have punched Enjolras right into the guts because those eyes, those blue eyes he had always liked because they reminded him of his mother, suddenly seemed just as questioning and insecure as he felt.

He could as well been looking straight into a mirror.

Everything he was, right there. Staring back at him. 

What is happening, his thoughts screamed.

“What is happening,” he saw himself saying. He saw his lips moving.

The music was too loud.

The bass vibrated through the floor and his body.

He knew the song that was playing because he had heard it to so many times before. It was the signal that they were about to wake up.

They were in a _dream._

Courfeyrac’s dream. Courfeyrac who knew Enjolras better than everyone except Combeferre and Courfeyrac was the dreamer who filled the space with his projections, people he had seen and met and knew.

Enjolras breathed out. 

A projection.

There was no other possibility.

No one would be able to create an image so real. The forger had to be somewhere else, still looking for them.

He saw a projection, looking like Enjolras, speaking like Enjolras, feeling and thinking like him.

Just a projection of his best friend’s mind.

Or was _he_ the projection?

No, he wasn’t.

Of course he wasn’t.

He was real. 

But he wouldn’t know if he wan't, would he?

He would be looking, speaking, feeling, thinking just the same.

He wouldn’t know.

So what if...

What if.. 

The music was getting louder and louder and if the dreamer woke up, the dream was over and the projections were gone, switched off like a light, just gone.

Not real.

Never real.

Never –

 

Enjolras woke up, breathing heavily.  

Everyone’s eyes were on him and where was he? He couldn’t find himself, so many familiar faces but not himself. Unfamiliar faces but not his own.

Someone called his name.

He jumped up from the chair, his arm hurt, he didn’t care.

The door on the left side of the room was open and it looked like a bathroom, thank god for Courfeyrac adding a bathroom. He tried to lock the door, his hands were shaking too much.

One try, second try.

The mirror stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes and looked nothing like him but like everything he felt.

He reached down into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out the hourglass with trembling hands.

It was so small it fit into his hand, the little adornments digging into his skin. 

He placed it onto the shelf next to the sink.

The sand was running down.

Just like it was supposed to.

Reality.

Enjolras watched the sand and tried tocontrol his breathing.

He was real, this was real.

The sink, the room, the hotel, the people.

Breathing, in and out. In and out. 

Not a projection. There hadn't been a fucking projection of him. 

God, that brilliant asshole. 

“You certainly don’t understand how it feels when you lose yourself,” he heard Montparnasse’s voice in his head and the first thing that came to his mind was how much Jehan and Grantaire himself had been underestimating the forgers abilities.

Enjolras would have laughed he wasn’t still shaking.

Breathing. 

In. Out. 

After slowly counting to ten he had calmed down enough to turn around and open the door.

Five people stared at him but Enjolras only had eyes for Grantaire who was still sitting calmly in his armchair.

“You want this job?”

Grantaire tilted his head, watching him. “Yes," he simply said, "I do.”

Enjolras nodded.

“Then I suppose we have a new forger. _If_ –,” he let his voice drop significantly to leave no room for doubts when he continued, “you don’t _ever_ mess with my head like that again. And should you do it, I’ll make sure you won’t see the next day to regret it. Are. We. Clear?”

And just like that Grantaire started smiling and it was a smile that lightened up his eyes, green and blue and bright.

“Crystal clear, chief.”

 

A little more than two years later Enjolras  would be sitting in a train, alone, feeling numb, trying desperately to stop feeling at all, and remember how it was one of the very few times Grantaire agreed to something he said without even trying to  argue first. 

***


	8. Part II. Grantaire I/VII

 

 

  
Part II

 

-Grantaire-

 

“If you walk on thin ice, you may as well dance.”

Melchior Lim

 

***

I/VII

***

 

_2 years later_

 

T.O.R.O.N.T.O. – C.A.N.A.D.A.

 

 

“Drive, drive, drive!”

 

Grantaire jumped into the car right behind Courfeyrac, followed by a yelling Feuilly and Enjolras who looked like he was about to kill someone.

Not someone.

Grantaire.

Marius started the car and reached over Combeferre on the passenger seat to open the glove box, handing one gun to the chemist and the other one to Courfeyrac in the back.

The architect took it and then broke out into hysterical laugher.

The next turn Marius took had them all pressed to the right, Grantaire’s shoulder crushing into Courfeyrac’s chest, Feuilly’s elbow into Grantaire’s stomach but at least he was far enough from Enjolras to get strangled.

“What the hell were you thinking?” The look of the blonde man’s eyes was murderous. “We had a plan!”

“And it wasn’t working!”

“It would have worked out perfectly fine!”

“Oh really? Didn’t look like that to me when you almost got _shot_!”

 “I had it under control!”

 

“Shut up, both of you!” Combeferre cut in firmly in that tone that silenced even Enjolras. 

Well, most of the times.

“We had a plan and he didn’t stick to it!”

“I hate to break it to you but your perfect plan sucked!”

“Because you didn’t –”

 

“Stop it!” Combeferre was dangerously close to shouting now. “Do you have the information?”

Marius steered the wheel and they tumbled to the other side. 

“Fucking hell, Marius!” Feuilly cursed when his head collided with Enjolras’s elbow.

“Sorry but would you like it better to end up in jail?” Marius snapped back and Courfeyrac was still laughing breathlessly. Combeferre looked at him concerned in the rear-view mirror. “Are you alright?”

The architect nodded and tried to get his breathing under control. “Yeah, fine. Absolutely fantastic!” he panted, “That was awesome, R.”

Enjolras’s look could have killed.

“We have everything we wanted,” Feuilly said and Combeferre nodded.

“But we wouldn’t have to run if _he_ had followed the plan!” Enjolras spat out.

Grantaire rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be dick, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac breathed out, “We would have nothing without R.”

“Well, including the risk of getting shot or packed behind bars for the rest of our lives!”

“Could you postpone the whole yelling thing, please?” Marius asked exasperatedly. “I’m trying to drive here!”

“ _Trying_ is accurate,” Feuilly murmured under his breath and Courfeyrac broke out into hysteric giggles again, the adrenaline rush wearing off as they shot onto the highway.

“Are they following us?” Grantaire asked.

Enjolras snorted and Combeferre looked back at the tramp. “No, I don’t think so. But we should still get to the airport as quick as possible.”

On cue Marius accelerated the car and Feuilly started to turn slightly green as they overtook a black Porsche Carrera in breakneck speed.

“Why the hell do we let you drive all the fucking time?”

“Because I’m even worse with those things,” Marius replied gesturing at the gun in Combeferre’s hand.

“Well, he’s right about that,” Courfeyrac agreed and Marius grinned at him in the rear-view mirror.

 

“Eyes on the road, man!” Feuilly yelled.

 

The next time Marius slewed was especially abrupt and Grantaire almost believed he did it on purpose.

“Maybe we shouldn’t pair off like –, Courfeyrac started but Enjolras didn’t let him finish.

“We stick to the plan.”

“Don’t you think I’d be better –“

“We stick to the goddamn plan!”

Courfeyrac stopped arguing. He only exchanged a quick look with Combeferre who didn’t say anything as well.

The plan was that Feuilly, Marius and Combeferre were going to take the next plane to some place in Europe while Courfeyrac, Enjolras and Grantaire were leaving for Mexico City. 

Grantaire wasn’t so positive about surviving the week unscathed until they were to meet up in Vienna again.

 

Enjolras was possibly going to have his head ripped off by then. Metaphorically at least. Judging by the look in his eyes he would probably have a hard time waiting until they were out of Combeferre’s supervision to go for it.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t been fighting during the last two years.

Actually they probably fought more than they _didn’t_ but Grantaire had never locked Enjolras in a closet without a gun in the middle of a job as well.

 

And if he had learned one thing about Enjolras in those two years, it was that he hated nothing more than being out of control.

Only once Grantaire had experienced that it ended in a breakdown but all the other times Enjolras out of control was the most terrifying and deadly thing except for maybe Combeferre’s passive-aggressive silence that made you wonder if you were already poisoned while a furious Enjolras simply rammed the dagger right into your heart.

 

Or just Grantaire’s heart because he was the only one insane enough to bring Enjolras to the edge of losing control and the only one masochistic enough to fall in love with him on top of that.

 

He didn’t even try to pretend not to be.

 

Courfeyrac cleared his throat and Grantaire’s eyes snapped away from the blonde man who even appeared aggressive while looking out of the window.

Well, he had also never pretended to be subtle about it.

That would have been a lost cause. Grantaire wasn’t cherishing the imagination that no one knew about his feelings for Enjolras.  Except for the man himself because he really turned out to be that oblivious.

He still hadn’t decided if it was a blessing or a curse.

 

They arrived at the airport, still in one piece, and Marius dropped off Enjolras, Courfeyrac and Grantaire at the first terminal. Feuilly looked like he desperately wanted to join them but stayed in the car.

Enjolras basically marched ahead while Grantaire and Courfeyrac trailed after him.

“I tried,” the architect said apologetically what made Grantaire smile.

“It’s alright man, I got pretty good at dealing with our grumpy leader, don’t you think?”

“He’s not grumpy, he’s furious.”

“Well, I did lock him in a closet.”

Courfeyrac grinned.

 

 

***

 

 

The architect was fast asleep and Grantaire was at least pretending to be until he heard Enjolras standing up from the window seat, carefully climbing over Courfeyrac in the middle.

He opened his eyes to find the other man looking back. His face would have looked perfectly closed off for anyone else but it was Grantaire’s job to read people and he recognized anger in Enjolras’s eyes when he saw it.

He innerly braced himself for the inevitable and tried not to get distracted too much by the way their legs were touching when Enjolras stepped out into the aisle.

Grantaire still held his breath and his heart might have stopped for a second when the other man leaned down, soft curls brushing his cheek, and whispered into his ear, “Toilet. Two minutes.”

 

He had never known that a whisper could sound that aggressive.

 

The breath he had been holding turned into a heavy sigh.  
Courfeyrac moved in his sleep but didn’t wake up. The architect had the ability to fall asleep literally everywhere on spot and Grantaire kind of envied him for that right now. Not that it would have kept Enjolras from doing whatever he planned on doing if Grantaire had been asleep.

Theoretically he knew that Enjolras wouldn’t rip off his head or something like that but the other man didn’t need to get physical to be hurtful.

He actually never did, not with Grantaire or the other members of the team, but Enjolras’s words could be just as cruel and scathing as a knife in the back. And still Grantaire couldn’t help but try to get a rise out of him whenever he could.

This time though he really _didn’t_ try to do that, he had only acted to get the job done safer and faster when the possibility opened up.

It hadn’t been planed but simply the better option with a higher percentage of success and Enjolras would eventually admit that. Not to Grantaire of course.

But he also knew that most of the times he _did_ provoke Enjolras, he knew which button to press, what to say and he did, every time, because Enjolras’s passionate if cruel reaction was just so much more _real_ than stilted smiles and indifferent glances and made Grantaire feel more alive in the last two years than at any point during the time before that when he’d been wondering sometimes if he really only had been dead on paper.

 

He sighed again.

Well yes, he had it bad.

 

Almost everyone on the plane seemed to be asleep, it was in the middle of the night and only the lights on the floor were lit so Grantaire was able to follow Enjolras inconspicuously.

He wasn’t sure if only imagined the old lady who still read a book in her window seat winking at him. Probably not.

He took another deep breath, checked if someone was watching, the stewardess he saw had her back turned to him, and silently slipped into the board toilet.

 

“Really, Chief? The toilet, you’re –”

 

Grantaire didn’t get out the rest of the sentence because mere moments later Enjolras had him pinned against the door, face first, twisting his arm on his back, keeping him there firmly locked in place against the hard surface.

“A walking cliché,” Grantaire finished struggling for breath with half of his face pressed against the door and alright, this wasn’t business class, this was just disgusting.

Enjolras’s grip tightened around his wrist.

The other man was strong and a couple of inches taller than him but Grantaire could have easily turned the tables if he had wanted to.

 

But well, sue him, he wouldn’t push off Enjolras when he had his body pressed against Grantaire’s even if the circumstances weren’t quite like he would have imagined them to be if they ever found themselves in such a situation.

 

“Shut up,” Enjolras snapped and Grantaire would by lying if he pretended that the slightly crazy and not so slightly desperate part of him didn’t enjoyed this a little bit too much.

The sane part was kind of terrified but well, sanity had said its goodbye a while ago.

“You should know that it takes more than a door in my face to shut me up, chief.”

Enjolras let out a sound dangerously close to a growl and with a sharp pull turned Grantaire around crashing his back against the door.

Grantaire winced and managed a very well practised smirk. “You know, you might want to be a little bit more silent or people might jump to the wrong conclusions here.”

He could have seen the freckles on the bridge on Enjolras’s eyes if he hadn’t been distracted by the anger in his eyes.

“You’re a maniac,” Enjolras snapped and it almost made Grantaire laugh.

He managed a shrug under Enjolras’s vice grip. “Is this a welcome to the club?”

 

If Grantaire didn’t know that he was far too valuable for Enjolras and the team as a forger he might have been concerned about his safety at the expression of the other man’s face right then.

But being pressed against a door and halfway suffocated had also never happened before so maybe he should be concerned a little bit more.

 

“Your behaviour,” Enjolras started and he was trying to sound steady but his voice was shaking, “is unacceptable.”

“My _behaviour_ got us what we needed and wait, wasn’t there something else. I think there was something else. Oh yes, it saved our _lives_ and you know that.”

“You acted on your own, without considering the others, we are a team!”  
“Without considering the others?” Grantaire echoed sarcastically, “Do you _listen_ to what you’re saying? What I did was the best option for all of us, you just didn’t see it because you’re a stubborn idiot!”

“We had a plan,” Enjolras snarled and simply ignored Grantaire’s last remark.

He rolled his eyes as exaggeratedly as he could. “And mine was better. Plans don’t always work out.”

“They would if everyone involved stick to them.”

“You can’t predict everything that might happen.”

Enjolras clenched his jaw and didn’t reply immediately what made Grantaire press on, “You _can’t control_ everything.”

“I can try,” Enjolras gritted out and Grantaire should let it go, he really should but couldn’t help it, he just couldn’t help it.

“Yeah? And how’s that working out for you right now?”

His voice had dropped to something more breathless and rough.

 

There wasn’t much left of the clear, bright blue of Enjolras’s eyes even in the sharp light. His pupils were huge. He was breathing harshly, panting, they both were. Grantaire hadn’t noticed until it was the only sound in the small room that was barely big enough for two people.

And then Enjolras’s grip loosened, only one hand and keeping Grantaire pressed against the door, the other one sliding off his shoulder – never breaking eye contact – and up his neck along his throat – Grantaire could feel his own heartbeat, in his ears, under his skin, thrumming against his ribcage – and gliding into his hair, tugging at the strands, pulling him _closer._

Enjolras’s eyes flickered to his lips and Grantaire was sure his knees would give in if Enjolras wasn’t pinning him against the door, the other man’s hands holding him up more than his own legs.

“It takes,” Enjolras said, voice dropping to a whisper. “Much more,” he said and Grantaire could feel his breath ghosting over his lips, “than this to make me lose control.”

 

And the next second his hands were gone and he reached behind Grantaire to open the door, making him stumble forward where Enjolras wasn’t standing anymore and Enjolras silently slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

 

Grantaire slumped down, not caring that he was still in the goddamn board toilet, and let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding while he tried to control his heart beating so hard it hurt.

 

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already made an announcement on my [tumblr](http://vintage-jehan.tumblr.com/) that I'm going to be on holiday for the next month. I don't know if I'll be able to upload the next chapters because I probably won't have a lot of internet access but I'll try so you won't have to wait too long. I'm really sorry if it shouldn't work out though.  
> Also yes, we started Grantaire's POV, I hope you liked it so far. ♥


	9. Part II. Grantaire II/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a working computer in the depths of the greek countryside where I spent my holidays! I am still very alive, yes. Sorry it took so long but here is a new chapter and oh, do I see a plot? I think I might see a plot approaching. Enjoy the chapter!

 

 

II/VII

 

***

 

V.I.E.N.N.A. – A.U.S.T.R.I.A.

 

 

Neither of them brought up _the Incident_ , as Grantaire had decided to call it in his head, and he did try to stop thinking about _the Incident_ as well because clearly Enjolras didn’t seem to ascribe _the Incident_ a lot of significance either.

 

Only that it wasn’t that simple because Grantaire would be able to count the time Enjolras had _deliberately_ touched him during the last two years on one hand.

And pathetically he actually did count.

And not one time it had been even close to something like… that.

As much as _the Incident_ seemed to have turned Grantaire into even more of a nervous wrack whenever Enjolras was around, it also appeared to have made the other man much more balanced and less on edge than before. For once he didn’t even look like he was about to punch Grantaire any time soon.

He simply ignored him as always and their conversations were short and limited to a minimum, _like always,_ but somehow it was much more difficult for Grantaire to let it be, _like always._

 

Courfeyrac had noticed the shift in the air, at least the one from Grantaire’s point, of course he had.

The architect knew when something was wrong or different than usual every single time the very next moment but he also had the consideration of letting it go when someone really didn’t want to talk about it.

Grantaire didn’t want to talk about it.

He had told Courfeyrac exactly that, “Courfeyrac, I don’t want to talk about it,” because saying something like, “Everything’s alright,” would be a waste of time for both of them and such a see-through lie, it would have been just pathetic to even try.

 

So the following days in Mexico had passed simply uneventful, spent in the hotel room with air conditioning and take out food, Enjolras hunched over his laptop pursuing his most favourite activity – planning – while Grantaire had stared out of the window, thinking or sketching the street or whatever came to his mind.

Courfeyrac who quickly seemed to be bored by them still didn’t leave to do something fitting his definition of fun because he obviously didn’t trust them to be alone together for what Grantaire didn’t know if he should be grateful for or not.

Either way or another it was a relief when they met up with the others again in Vienna after a few days.

 

That was until Feuilly opened the door for them and his expression made Grantaire’s stomach twist into an awfully tight knot.

 

“What happened?” Coufeyrac asked immediately.

The point man opened the door further to let them in first, took a look down the corridor before he closed the door behind them.

Combeferre looked up from the laptop when the entered, his hair a mess from probably running his fingers through it.

Marius stopped pacing. He was frowning and Grantaire was still slightly amazed at how sometimes the usual boyishness of his face turned into a serenity that made him appear about ten years older from one moment to another. Or he would have been if he wasn’t that distracted by feeling that something very, very unsettling had happened.

 

“We think we found evidence that –,” Feuilly started without bothering to greet them and exchanged a glance with Combeferre before he continued, “evidence that Patron-Minette might be active again.”

 

It was like someone had emptied a bucket of ice-water over Grantaire’s head.

 

His blood ran cold, he _felt_ cold, frozen, at the string of memories running through his mind in a split second.

 

Enjolras visibly tensed and dropped his backpack next to the door to cross the room with a few long steps, sitting down next to Combeferre as he reached for the laptop.

He frowned, his eyes quickly flickering from the left to the right over the information displayed on the screen.

“That’s impossible,” he said more to himself as it seemed, “They haven’t been active in _years._ ”

“Five years exactly,” Combeferre confirmed, “Cosette told Marius –“ He nodded at Marius who nervously ran a hand through over his face before he continued.   
“I haven’t heard a lot about them. Which is stupid since, well, they’ve been basically a legend. Cosette only told me a couple of months ago that then just from one day to another their leader disappeared and they kind of shred themselves to pieces after that. She didn’t know more but she said Jehan might.”

 

Grantaire snorted involuntarily. He hadn’t moved an inch for the whole length of the conversation.  

 

Courfeyrac looked at him with mild concern. “R? Are you alright?”

 

They both knew the answer was clearly a no. No, he wasn’t okay so he didn’t even bother pretending to be and just straight out asked, “What evidence do you have? Is it really solid?”

He barely heard his own voice with the sound of blood rushing through his ears.

Get a grip, Grantaire mentally scolded himself and forced his lungs into taking a deep breath before he concentrated on Feuilly’s words.

“Pretty much, yes,” the point man said, “There’s been an incident in Strasbourg last week and it’s clearly their style. High up mark, lobbyist, missing an hour in the middle of the day remembering nothing and later bank account empty, transactions impossible to trace,” he paused.

Grantaire prayed with all of his non-existing faith that Feuilly wouldn’t continue but he did, saying exactly what Grantaire expected.

“And they left a rose.”

Of course they did.

Something nastily close to panic stared to rise up inside Grantaire but he pushed it down with all force.

“Is it possible that whoever did were just well-informed copycats? They don’t even have to be that well informed. Patron-Minette never tried to be subtle about these things. Actually, they were quite the opposite.”

 

And by they Grantaire meant him and by him he meant that stupid maniac who brought roses to knife fights.

Or gun fights.

And every other fancy event really.

 

“We considered the possibility,” Feuilly admitted, “but we _know_ them, we know how they operated, we watched them long enough to –”

“You watched them?” Grantaire cut in sharply.

He didn’t overlook the way Feuilly quickly glanced at the others.

He didn’t blame him for it. Grantaire was an actor, sort of at least, but he knew he had to sound suspicious to everyone and especially to four internationally wanted thieves. Five if he counted Marius even though the boy was one of the unsuspecting and good-natured people Grantaire had ever met.

So four and a half maybe.

“We did,” Feuilly eventually answered after a beat of hesitation.

“Why did you do that?” He kept his voice steady and slightly confused even though it took a great effort to keep up the façade while all he wanted to do was curl up into the ball and forget Feuilly ever said a word to begin with.

“Because they are important,” Enjolras answered then and his eyes were taking in every single one of Grantaire’s reactions. “They appear to be just a bunch of thieves, good ones, everyone who knows something about the business can see that, but there are others who basically do the same only that Patron-Minette aren’t _just_ a bunch of thieves who do it for the money or adrenaline. They also extract outmost sensitive information and they certainly don’t do it for themselves. They work for someone much more influential, much more clever, and those people, whoever they are, they want power and not the kind that helps anyone but themselves.”

“And what did you plan on doing about that?” Grantaire asked harshly maybe, probably. But god, Enjolras and his blind, unconditional idealism was going to be the death of him. And Grantaire’s with him if he wasn’t careful enough. (He wasn’t.)

Enjolras kept his voice calm. “You didn’t ask how we know that.”

Grantaire mentally kicked himself but didn’t let it show. “Am I supposed to doubt your skills of information gathering?” he retoured dryly and Enjolras’s expression changed into the very special ‘Grantaire, you’re annoying me’-face that was reserved just for him.

“We were planning on infiltrating them,” he said curtly.

Grantaire blinked.

“You got to be kidding me.”  
Anger flared up in Enjolras’s blue eyes. “Those people like the ones Patron-Minette was working for and maybe is working for again are the reason we do what we do,” he snapped. “Greedy and ruthless and abusing their power. That’s what we fight against and just because these ones don’t have their faces on the cover of Forbes Magazine means they’re less important or less dangerous for that matter. They’re just harder to catch and it might take us years to find a way to get close to them again but that won’t stop us, so _no, Grantaire_ , I am certainly not kidding.”

 

God, Grantaire wanted to curse Jehan to hell and back for getting him into this disaster.

He had held his breath all the while he had been standing there and staring like an idiot.

Jehan had known _exactly_ that Grantaire was going to fall for Enjolras the moment they met, he was sure of that.

He had meant it back that day back in Paris about two years ago when he had said Jehan wouldn’t have send Enjolras and his team to him if they hadn’t been a hundred percent sure he was going to agree to join them.

Because, to be honest, he had been fascinated and drawn to Enjolras’s determination and unshakable idealism against all the odds the world was throwing at him back then when Les Amis was just a name on a file in Grantaire’s hands filled with smaller files such as “Archtiect”, “Point man” and “Extractor (leader)”.

Faceless they had been but at the same time so utterly imaginable heroes or heroines, vigilantes out of stories from a hundred years back in time.

Reading all those files, all the information he had been able to get his hands on – and Jehan had always made sure they contained every possible detail, that scheming genius – Grantaire had spent countless nights disbelieving, irritated by something he thought to be sheer nativity what it _was_ , he hadn’t changed his mind about that one, but at the same time, deep down, a hope had started to light him up from the inside.

He had denied at first.

But _after_ , after everything had gone so absolutely, terribly wrong, it hadn’t been possible anymore.

At first he had blamed it on the loneliness of dark Parisian winter nights filled by pain and nightmares, followed by bright summer days he had to spend trapped in his apartment and it had made him feel stupid.

Equally naïve.

But the moment Grantaire had met this group of people and Enjolras, with his passion and his control, his words and his eyes, there hadn’t been a moment of doubt about what he was going to do and where he wanted, needed to be.

Seeing Enjolras in person, that unwavering hope, utopian even and reckless, personified in a face that tried so hard to keep all the emotions from showing, had Grantaire falling the last step over the abyss fast and hard.

And equally fast bringing Enjolras to burst out this passion, his feelings of hope and hatred, had become one of Grantaire’s primary goals while staying with them because a controlled Enjolras was beautiful but a passionate Enjolras was indescribable.

 

So yes, Grantaire had it bad and to not make it even worse he liked to blame everyone else for the situation he found himself in. It might not be a really mature way to deal with problems but he didn’t have it in him to particularly care.

Jehan was the easiest possibility to place some of the blame because Grantaire knew that they had at least partly known how deep his fascination had run. Not that they could have grasped the whole extent of it. Neither had Grantaire until the moment it was too late.   
Had he known he was going to turn into a staring, breathless mess once Enjolras’s eyes light up with fury and his words seeped right into his core well, maybe Grantaire would have considered putting that gun down those two years ago a little bit more.

Or who was he kidding; he wouldn’t have had it in him to get blood all over that stupidly perfect hair.

 

“Do we have any clues that they’re the same people as they were back then?” Courfeyrac asked, god bless him. “Isn’t it possible that they’re a newly assembled team? We would have to start again at the beginning.”  
Enjolras broke their eye contact and turned to the architect with a blush high on his cheeks. Grantaire blinked.

He hadn’t even realized the silence.

Or anything else like… time.

He saw from the corner of his eye how Feuilly rolled his eyes.

“They’re most likely not all the same,” Combeferre explained calmly, professional while he had some sort of telepathic conversation with Courfeyrac that Grantaire couldn’t decipher but he had gotten used to it over the years. “But Feuilly found pictures of the same man we associated with Patron-Minette back then in Straßbourg again right around the time they hit.”

Grantaire had a hard time stopping his chin from dropping. “You actually _found_ someone who worked for Patron-Minette on your own?”

“We found him on recordings of surveillance cameras in a one mile radius just minutes after their hit happened and that nine times, it wasn’t a coincidence,” Feuilly said, “Three of the times he was buying roses.”

 

He turned the laptop around for Grantaire to see and it felt like someone had punched him right into the stomach. Or the shoulder.

Memories of rain, darkness, cold threatened to fill up his head. And pain. Pain pushing at the edges of his conscience.

He barely registered Feuilly’s next words.

“We only found four aliases, no real name. He has to be at least associated with their dream unit if he’s showing up where they hit their marks but we don’t know how high up their ranks he was and is.”

“Very high,” Grantaire managed to get out and five pairs of eyes turned to him.

He clenched his jaw and forced down the memories like he had for the last _five goddamn years_ , it was just a blurry picture, just a blurry picture of a face, for Christ’s sake.

He forced out a shaky breath that was halfway mixed with a strangled laugh

To hell with it.

Whatever, to hell with it, he was done trying to be calm about this.

“He goes by Babet in case you’re interested and he’ll probably try to convince you that he’s been the number two back then but let me tell you, he wasn’t. Number three on a good day.”

“How do you know that?” Enjolras asked sharply .

This time Grantaire actually laughed. So what if it sounded hysterical, he had a damn good reason. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it _matters,_ ” the other man snapped, “If you have information that we can use to get back to –”

“No.”

The silence was cold.

“No?” Enjolras repeated calmly, dangerously though, but Grantaire didn’t care only he did, still, but for once he wished he didn’t, really didn’t _want_ to care, he…

“I didn’t get myself almost killed to jump right back into that bloody mess. Not even for you.”

Grantaire didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t want to look into their faces and just turned around, out of the room, _away_ , so maybe one of them would actually do him the favour of believing the lie that didn’t even convince himself.

 

 

***


	10. Part II. Grantaire III/VII

 

 

III/VII

 

***

 

_7 years earlier_

 

M.O.N.T.F.E.R.M.E.I.L. – F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

The smoke of his third cigarette mingled with his breath in the cold winter air as Grantaire stood next to the street light and watched the snow fall silently to the ground.

The small inn behind him was quiet in the middle of the night, all the other guests already sleeping soundly in their beds.

He shivered and wrapped the scarf tighter around his neck.

“Trouble sleeping?”  

The voice was smooth, the tone casually conversational.

Grantaire turned around slowly. A slender young man stepped out of the shadow of the door niche gracefully as if he hadn’t been standing there in the cold for so long.  

“Not sleeping,” Grantaire said with half of a smile and blew another breath of smoke in the air. “Dreaming actually.”

“Nightmares?” the man asked and the street light illuminated his features, pale and delicately sharp, full lips curling around the word almost caressingly.

Grantaire shook his head. “Nah. It’s more like… you know, they’re just vivid sometimes. You wake up and feel like you didn’t even sleep at all.” He shrugged.

 

“I know exactly what you mean.”

 

The other man’s eyes were so dark Grantaire couldn’t even make out the difference between colour and pupil.

“Thanks, but I really don’t think so,” he said with a small chuckle. He didn’t let it show as a cold shiver ran down his spine.  
The other man’s mouth curled up into a smile.

“Oh yes, I do.” He held out his hand, eyes never leaving Grantaire’s.

  
“I’m Montparnasse.”

 

***

 

_Present day_

 

V.I.E.N.N.A. – A.U.S.T.R.I.A.

 

***

 

 

„ _Good afternoon, you reached the bureau of J. Prouvraire, my name is Joly. How can I help you?_ “

“Joly, I need to talk to Jehan.”

“ _R?_ ”

“Yes, R. Listen, I really, _really_ need to talk to Jehan. They’re not picking up their goddamn phone.”

“ _They’re not here._ ”

“What do you mean, ‘they’re not here’?”

“ _Exactly what I said. They’re not here._ ”

“They’re not?”

“ _No, they’re…this is getting a little bit weird, R. What the hell wrong?_ ”

 “It’s… I didn’t…” Grantaire breathed out and ran a hand through his hair. The wind was cool where he stood on the fire escape of the hotel, high up above the city. It helped to clear his head.

  
More or less.

 

“ _Deep breaths, okay? In and out,_ ” Joly said calmly but Grantaire could hear the concern in his voice. He took a few more breaths – in and out – following Joly’s gentle instructions until he eventually did feel a calmer. A little.

Neither of them said something for a few moments, then Grantaire sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, I –”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Joly cut him off, “ _apologize. Jehan left the city quite rashly on Monday. They didn’t say where they were going._ ”

“Do you have a way to reach them?”                                                            

“ _Not Jehan, no. They left a note that I should just forward any incoming orders to Cosette. She’s supposed to be in Florida at the moment, I didn’t get instructions to send her anywhere else yet. Bahorel’s with them though._ ”

“Can you try calling him?”

“ _On it._ ”

Grantaire waited an agonizingly long time of thirty seconds, gnawing at his bottom lip.

“ _Not picking up_ ,” Joly announced.

“Damnit,” Grantaire cursed, “Joly, can you, I don’t know, track their phones or something?”

There was a pause.

“ _R, what happened?_ ”

“I don’t… I just really need to talk to Jehan, Joly. Please.”

“ _You need to tell me what’s wrong. You’re worrying me._ ”

Grantaire took a deep breath and a second. “Patron-Minette’s back.”

 

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

Then, “ _Give me a minute._ ”

 

Grantaire let out a singular not of slightly hysterical laughter before he started counting the seconds trying to stop well, thinking about everything else.

At forty-nine Joly announced, “ _Jehan’s phone is here in the bureau and Bahorel’s is in his flat._ ”

“Bastards,” Grantaire cursed again but lacking any real force.

The silence stretched and he knew Joly wasn’t going to say anything, waiting for him to do so and patiently giving him the time he needed.  
“Feuilly found pretty solid evidence that they’re back. Something in Strasbourg, anyway, it doesn’t matter. They want to do something about it, Enjolras and the others, always wanted to.”

“ _Do you think they will now?_ ”

“They will try. They don’t have a lot of information though.”

“ _Are you going to tell them anything?_ ”

The question was pointless. “You know I am.”

Joly’s voice was soft when he said, “ _You don’t have to make this you’re responsibility again R. Chetta would say the same,_ Bossuet _would certainly say the same after last time._ ”

 

Grantaire swallowed. “Sometimes, I wish I could.”

 

“ _But you can’t._ ”

“No. I can’t.”

“ _Just promise me you’ll be careful, please?_ ”

“Of course.” Grantaire didn’t have it in him to reply anything else even though both of them knew it wouldn’t be that simple. “Will you keep trying to reach Jehan for me?”

“ _I will._ ”

Usually he would have ended the conversation here, he hadn’t been able to reach Jehan and he had kind of calmed down again with Joly’s help but he didn’t hang up yet.

“Joly, do you think Parnasse…?” He trailed off, not quite believing he actually considered asking.

“ _No,_ ” Joly replied leaving no room for doubt in his voice, “ _He isn’t back with them, he’s not stupid. He’d be dead the moment he so much as set a foot near any of them._ ”

“Right,” Grantaire sighed. He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, opened them again. “Guess that’s a good thing,” he simply said.

Just as he ended the door to the stairwell clicked open and Enjolras stepped out.

 

“I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“ _Be careful?_ ” Joly asked again, urgently.

“I will,” Grantaire said with conviction even though Joly was probably one of the only people who would be able to see right through it. “Thank you. Again.”

“ _Always,”_ he heard right before he hung up.

 

“Who was that?” Enjolras asked, eyes narrowed and arms crossed in front of his chest, utterly defensive and it was basically an invitation for Grantaire to snap back, “None of your business.”

He sounded more tired than forceful and god, he was tired.

Enjolras didn’t seem to care about his words and pursed his lips what gave his already dismissive expression a more disdainful touch. “It is my business because what just happened in there and what you seem to know about the whole thing sounds an awful lot like there’s history we don’t know of. We need to know if we can trust you.”

Grantaire snorted. “Oh really, and _that_ would be a reason not to trust me? Having a _history_ with Patron-Minette?”

“Do you then?” Enjolras asked ignoring Grantaire’s gibe.

Grantaire stepped forward to lean onto the railing, sighed and eventually shrugged weakly with the left shoulder. “In some extent.”

“What extent?”

“Jehan wanted to find out about their plans and who they were working for, just like you did, and they wanted someone on the inside so they recruited me.”

Enjolras’s face immediately lost some of its defensiveness. He looked surprised yet still kind of sceptic. “Was that the job you’ve been doing?”

“Yes, it was,” Grantaire confirmed with another sigh. He did sigh a lot, he realized and that almost made him want to sigh again. “Patron-Minette needed a forger at that point because their _oh so perfect_ leader,” it wasn’t much effort to put as much sarcasm as possible into the words but Enjolras didn’t show any reaction to it, again, “he was going nuts, I tell you. I mean you know he’s been forging since he was fucking eight or something. He was losing his mind. Can’t say it’s not impressive he still lasted that long. Anyway, I was supposed to replace him in their dream unit as a forger and it worked well, very well, for more than two goddamn years.”

He barked out a laugh and Enjolras unfolded his arms, stepping closer to Grantaire at the railing. He didn’t interrupt, just waited for him to continue.

“One mistake.” Grantaire shook his head. “One fucking stupid mistake when we were so close to getting what we wanted. I know Jehan blames themselves for what happened but we were both thoughtless. My cover got blown. They figured out I was a mole. They wanted to get rid of me, as expected,” he said sarcastically. “And I would have died in the streets like a bloody rat.”

Enjolras flinched just slightly. “You didn’t.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Good observation, Sherlock. No, I didn’t. Bullet missed the important parts by like an inch. Basically that's what kept me alive long enough for Bossuet to find me _by chance_ , can you believe that? He basically had a really bad day, lost his job, missed his train, sprained his ankle when he slipped because it started to rain and then got lost just to stumble over a bleeding, guy close to death in an alleyway.” He huffed. “Guess I’d never been that lucky.”

Enjolras didn’t look at him, stared right ahead down at the city that unfolded itself under them and if Grantaire wasn’t completely wrong he had gone even more pale.Enjolras was always pale. Even in summer. He got more freckles in summer. 

 

The silence stretched into minutes as Enjolras seemed to sort out his thoughts, not looking at Grantaire but also not looking angry or suspicious or like he was about to point his gun at his head any moment.

“You know what’s ironic?” Grantaire attempted to sound casual as he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. 

Enjolras turned to him raising an eyebrow but he didn’t stop Grantaire either so he explained, “It was actually around the time you were looking for a new forger and I was supposed to be send to you as a mole for Patron-Minette. So basically I’m just doing the job I was going to be doing five years ago now only without the little stage in between.”

 

Enjolras frowned suddenly tense. “What did they do without you?” he asked and this time Grantaire frowned because something was off about Enjolras’s tone. As if he was trying to figure out something important he had missed.

“Well, you know what happened,” he said slowly, “they send the only one with the abilities to be considered for the job but I think I can speak for everyone when I say it didn’t go as they planned. Or _anyone_ planned, really.”

Enjolras let out a breath. Then he laughed. It was a short laugh, maybe too hard and abrupt to even be counted as one. He looked like he had suddenly found the solution to an overly complicated question. “We never knew who sent him.”

 

Grantaire stared.

Alright, now that was a surprise.

“You didn’t?”

 

Enjolras shook his head slowly, thoughtfully now. “No, he…I mean we were busted at the job. It was supposed to be a test run and well, you know, it went _horribly._ There wasn’t something like time for interrogation after.”  
“And you didn’t think about, I don’t know, doing that later?” Grantaire asked incredulously.

“What? No, not that was impossible, I shot him,” Enjolras mumbled, still halfway lost in his own thoughts

“You _shot_ him?”

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t have a chance.”

Okay, _something_ wasn’t adding up here. Grantaire felt like they were having two entirely different conversations at once and he was getting really, really confused by it.  
“You mean you shot him in the dream, right?”

Enjolras suddenly looked annoyed. “There were two, Parnasse and a second. I didn’t shot him in the dream, I shot _Parnasse_ in the dream. I really shot the other guy.”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

“Oh,” Grantaire said, “Yeah. Sure you did.”

That really wasn’t what he had expected to hear.

He cleared his throat. “So…what did Parnasse think of your plan back then?”

Enjolras frowned at the change of subject. “He didn’t know about it. It was irrelevant because about the same time Patron-Minette fell apart. At least now we know why that was. If we had known back then we could have interrogated that man, certainly we would have been able to get something out of him but we –,” he stopped himself and corrected reluctantly, “I acted quite thoughtlessly.”

Grantaire didn’t really listen. If he hadn’t been trying to wrap his head around the fact that neither Enjolras nor anyone else of the team even had so much as a _clue_ , he would have most likely teased Enjolras mercilessly about admitting a mistake willingly.

“It really never came up?” he asked instead, incredulously still and Enjolras’s tone was full of familiar annoyance again when he answered, “No Grantaire, it didn’t came up. I don’t know how well you are acquainted with Montparnasse but he’s never been the exactly chatty type.”

Grantaire snorted. Well, he wasn’t _wrong._

“I just can’t believe you never talked about what you worked on before.”

“You never talked about what you did as well,” Enjolras reminded him very helpfully, “Everyone has their secrets in this business that they don’t necessarily want to have exposed. You just have to know the risk of trusting a person that you don’t know everything about and then decide if their worth it. I made the decision to trust Parnasse. Jehan didn’t tell us who he had been working for after he left and I didn’t felt the need to know. They also didn’t tell us about you either because it’s not their secret and I respect that. I never regretted my decision. Parnasse never gave me a reason not to trust him.”

 

“But I did?”

 

Enjolras shook his head and sighed. Grantaire didn’t look back up at him. He didn’t sound angry or annoyed just resigned.

“I don’t know why you’re here, Grantaire. As much as I hated it I knew that Parnasse’s loyalty was based on how I saved his life when I could have done the exact opposite. I didn’t want it to be that way but he stayed with us because he thought he owed me. We didn’t talk about it but we knew that it was the reason. But you don’t owe us anything. You don’t owe Jehan. You don’t believe in our cause like we do. You made it clear plenty of times that you’re just doing your job so I wonder why you’re staying when you don’t owe anyone and you don’t believe in anything.”

Grantaire didn’t turn to Enjolras, just felt those bright, watchful eyes on his face. “You’re wrong chief at least in one point,” he said and this would have been the moment where their conversation turned into an argument, snide remarks, loud voices and barely concealed insults said in anger and frustration but Grantaire felt surprisingly calm instead, the nervous anticipation of the last week and the last hour fading and leaving behind an almost defeating resignation.

“I do believe in one thing.”

It didn’t matter that his steps were slower and he wasn’t running when he turned around and walked away from Enjolras for the second time that day. His heart beat just as fast as the first time.

 

 

***


	11. Part II. Grantaire IV/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from my vacation so the next chapters will probably be uploaded without so much time in between. Thank you all for being so patient. ♥

 

 

IV/VII

 

***

 

_5 years earlier_

P.A.R.I.S. – F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

***

 

The first thing Grantaire felt once he regained consciousness was the dull weight on his shoulder that was supposed to be pain, he reckoned, only too distant, too numb. His throat felt dry and breathing was slightly difficult as well as, well, moving in general.

It took some effort to open his eyes to the stinging light in the room that looked unfamiliar, impersonal and sterile. A few seconds later he dimly realized he was in a hospital.

There was a brief moment in which panic rose up inside him before his brain decided, no, that’s a good thing. Hospitals at least meant he wasn’t dead even though he felt like he bloody well could be.

Should be.

He thought that he _should_ be dead and then the reasons  _why_ he should be dead and what had happened came back at once. 

 

They had found out. They had...

 

He focused on breathing, in and out, in and out, calmly. He was in a hospital. He was _alive_ in a hospital. Alive, that was all that mattered. 

After one minute or five or ten, he really had no idea, he finally noticed the other person in the room sitting, eyes closed, next to his bed.

Grantaire knew Jehan wasn’t sleeping. They were too tense, hands clasped tightly together resting on their lap.

He cleared his throat – out came only a pathetic gurgling sort of sound – and Jehan opened their eyes. They looked tired and young but a very, very small smile appeared on their lips that made Grantaire feel a little less pathetic about his attempt of a cough.

“What…,” he started but Jehan held up a hand to stop him. Grantaire was silently grateful. The feeling of the word in his throat certainly wasn’t a pleasant one.

“You were shot,” Jehan began and Grantaire rolled his eyes in a mute, “Oh really?”

Another ghost of a smile flickered over Jehan's face for just a second.

“Do you remember anything of what happened after that?”

 

Rain. Coldness. Blood. 

Pain. 

 

Grantaire shook his head.

“A young man found you and called an ambulance. His name is Bossuet. He’s been coming every day to see how you are as have Joly and Chetta. They are furious at me by the way.” Jehan smiled weakly.

Grantaire shook his head again to say, “Not your fault.”

He saw in Jehan’s eyes that they were going to talk about this again, just not right then.

Instead they continued, “You were in intensive care for four days and then you’ve been waking up for two. There’s been some nerve damage in your shoulder but the doctors say that with enough physiotherapy there shouldn’t be any permanent effects. But you'll have...well.”

Grantaire nodded.

A bullet through the shoulder usually left scars.

“They say the bullet missed the main artery by less than an inch. You would have died within minutes.”

 

Grantaire closed his eyes as he realized what that meant. 

 

“Who shot you, R?” Jehan asked gently. They sounded like they knew, they had to know.

It took a few seconds before Grantaire managed to get the words out.

 

“Parnasse…doesn’t… miss.”

 

“No. He never does.” Jehan sounded almost grateful.

Grantaire breathed out what sounded like a bad imitaion of a laugh. 

 

That bloody bastard.

 

 

***

 

_Present day_

B.R.U.S.S.E.L.S. – B.E.L.G.I.U.M.

_***_

Grantaire hadn’t expected Enjolras to drop their plans once he found out about Grantaire’s so called _history_ with Patron-Miette and, just as expected, he didn’t.

On the contrary, he revived the teams old intention on infiltrating the group with shining, new ideas - a lot - as well as the details Grantaire was able to give them, at least the ones that were still relevant after so many years - not many. 

 

It wasn’t exactly a walk through the park.

 

Remembering traumatic experiences never was what could be considered an easy exercise. Especially when Grantaire had to watch every single word he said so he wouldn’t accidently reveal Montparnasse’s _involvement_ in the whole thing. He wasn’t sure why he bothered, it wasn’t like he and Montparnasse were anywhere near close what wasn’t a surprise.

You weren’t close to someone who shot you straight through the shoulder missing the important bits by an inch even though in attempt to actually save you. 

Grantaire knew it had been Montparnasse’s very, _very_ debatable way of sparing his life because the man could throw a knife into someone’s eye from a fifteen meters distance – moving. He could have killed him easily when his cover had blown. He hadn't. Instead he had given him a way out, a chance. 

He still wasn't sure why and therefor had taken Grantaire some time to see it as something to be grateful for and it didn’t really made them best friends, or whatever they had been, again. Montparnasse hadn't been _evil_  as such but certainly not what you would call a good person as well. Cunning, yes. Unpredictable, always that. 

Grantaire remembered the first time Jehan had told him Parnasse had joined Les Amis for real, that Patron-Minette had been gone. 

He had laughed but not because he didn't believe it, simply because of the twisted yet irrationally fitting way it seemed just enough drama for Montparnasse's liking. 

 

 ***

 

They followed Babet to Brussels.

It took Feuilly twelve hours to find him and Grantaire wondered if this new Patron-Minette tried to make their return known or if they had just become sloppy after all those years. He suspected a mixture of both.

Babet didnot only do nothing to conceal himself or act in any way unsuspicious but also, as they figured out quickly, had adopted a daily routine what was one of the basic no-go’s for everyone in their business.

Feuilly had managed to bug the corner of the café he went to every morning while Courfeyrac successfully distracted the waitress in a way that had made Feuilly let out vomiting noises over the coms. The architect hadn’t been bothered by that in the slightest.

Combeferre and Marius then continued taking turns in visiting the café. During two years Marius had turned out to be an excellent observer, attentive as Combeferre, not equally patient but certainly more inconspicuous. No one suspected a quiet, blushing young man in ill-fitting pants and button-ups shirts to be up to something.  
Since seemingly everyone was concerend he might be recognized Grantaire wasn’t allowed to leave Feuilly’s hotel room where they worked. The point man stayed in the same hotel as Enjolras. Combeferre and Grantaire were in another one, as well as Courfeyrac and Marius.

Combeferre had just returned from his “after work coffee run” and began to report his observations.

Grantaire only listened with one ear and instead watched Enjolras  who had his back turned to the rest of them while he stared at what Courfeyrac insisted to call the “mastermind-mind map”, a provisional white board full of pictures and notes and arrows that looked like it was cut out of a second class crime film.

 

They had been in Brussels for almost two weeks now and Grantaire knew Enjolras was getting restless.

 

“We need to act.”

Grantaire sighed. And there it was.

Combeferre stopped mid-sentence and frowned. “Do you think we have enough information?” he asked carefully.

Enjolras didn’t turn around and pointed at the picture of Babet on their fancy mastermind-mind map.

“We have everything we need. We established that Babet is the one in contact with their bosses. They not only contact him, he has a way to contact them and from all we know he has the most details about them since he’s the one handling the missions. We figured that much. There are two possibly new members and Claquesous is still working with them. Nine phone calls in the last weeks and two visits to the café. He’s still in charge of extracting and after everything we heard and R’s information Babet is incredibly afraid of him even though he has the higher position in the new order.”

Enjolras turned around. “Isn’t that all we need? The knowledge of who has the information and an emotion strong enough to manipulate his subconscious mind into giving us what we want?”

“And you think that emotion is fear?”

Enjolras’s eyes found their way to Grantaire’s rather reluctantly.

 

Grantaire couldn’t quite put his finger on it but there was something that had changed since their conversation in Vienna different from what had happened after _the Incident_ in the plane. It seemed quite similar to their bickering nature from before only with a constant instead of slowly rising anger from Enjolras’s side. It was like Grantaire’s confession that he did have  a reason for staying with the Amis, even though he hadn’t specified it and Enjolras hadn’t asked, had made their whole lack of understanding for each other _worse_ instead of better like Grantaire had stupidly hoped it would.

Confusing as hell, that was how dealing with one another had become.

Grantaire felt Enjolras watching more often when he was supposed to ignore him. He snapped at him more viciously and to Grantaire’s utter surprise he sometimes even looked lost. His hand seemed to be holding onto something inside the pocket of his jeans more and more frequently and Grantaire wasn’t sure what it was the other man felt the need of holding but the suspicion he had was as unbelievable as it was worrying should it be the truth.

Enjolras’s restlessness was disconcerting in a way that everyone seemed to notice but no one did anything about it. The looks Combeferre and Courfeyrac shared over Enjolras’s head weren’t concerned but meaningful even though Grantaire didn’t know with _what_ meaning.

 

Should he be more sensitive? Probably. Was he going to be? Not very likely.

 

"Yes," Enjolras said. Maybe he thought he sounded calm. He didn't.  "Fear is a very strong emotion. If we find a scenario for Claquesous to threat Babet, the fear that is subconsciously only experienced more intense will make him want to protect and therefore manifest the information.”

Grantaire bit down onto his bottom lip and pretended to contemplate Enjolras’s words. Then he simply, but with feeling, said, “That’s stupid.”

Enjolras took a deep breath. “Oh, is it?”

“It is. Claquesous might be terrifying as hell but everyone knows who they have to be most afraid of and Babet is very much aware it isn’t a ruthless extractor who takes cosplaying Zorro too seriously. That’s why he’s loyal. Loyalty out of fear is almost unshakable. The security he has to protect his thoughts in a case like that is _huge._ The moment he’s threatened it’ll go nuts and if you don’t want to spent the entire time leading them on a merry chase you’ll be out of there in a matter of seconds. Violence isn’t your answer here.”

“Well, logical argumentation isn’t either,” Enjolras snapped but that was almost an agreement so…progress.

Combeferre looked thoughtful. His fingers ran absently through Courfeyrac’s hair. The architects head rested on Combeferre’s lap while his legs effectively trapped Marius on the couch as well.

“You know them better than we do,” Feuilly said. “What do you suggest?”

“Yes, Grantaire, what do you suggest?” Enjolras repeated sarcastically. “Please do enlighten us.”

“With pleasure, chief,” he replied with a fake enthusiasm that made Enjolras scowl. “What Babet hated most back then was how he always was second in place after Claquesous. M…Maybe because their leader always preferred an excellent extractor over a second class architect, hell if I know. But now he’s their handler, he’s in charge and he will use every opportunity to show off. We need to make him do exactly that. Making him feel powerful will make him careless and when he’s close to –”

“ _That’s_ your idea?” Enjolras stared at him, disbelieving.

“Indeed,” Grantaire replied calmly and before he could continue Enjolras started again.

“We’re not talking about a single-minded business man here, Grantaire. His is a _dream thief_. He is not stupid.”

“No, but he's human.”

“And that means he will spill his secrets once you tell him how great and powerful he is?” 

Grantaire shrugged. “See, it’s not so difficult to understand basic human nature.”

Enjolras already looked positively ready to strangle him. “That’s bullshit!” 

“I prefer to call it realism.”

“It’s a suicide plan! Do you _want_ them to kill us?”

“Yes, Enjolras,” Grantaire snapped. He wondered at what point one of the others would interfere. “I really want to die because the last time I almost did was so much fun already.”

Enjolras didn't answer immediately. When he did it sounded angry, as always, but there was something else. “Do I know?” he asked too quiet for a moment but Grantaire was too confused to do anything else but react like he always did, like he felt like he was supposed to when they had an argument.   

He frowned. “What _the hell_ are you implying?”

Everything but sole anger was gone from Enjolras's expression from one second to another. 

“Oh, I don't know, Grantaire. What do you think? Maybe I wouldn’t have to imply anything if you weren't being such a cryptic asshole all the time!”

 

“Enough! Time out, alright?” Feuilly it was then. “Stop it!”

 

Enjolras miraculously shut up. Grantaire folded his shaking hands.

The point man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Everybody’s tired. We are going to talk this over again tomorrow. _Not_ up for debate,” he added firmly when Enjolras opened his mouth most likely to protest. “This is _my_ room. It was a long day and I am tired and I want you out of here in twenty seconds.”

No one moved for a moment.

Feuilly sighed again. “One…”

 

***

 

Grantaire fell onto the hotel bed fully clothed, fully ready to fell asleep then and there even though it couldn’t be past 9pm.

The drive to the hotel with Combeferre had been almost as draining as the previous _dispute_ with Enjolras that really hadn’t been that much of an escalation actually. There had been worse arguments than that. A lot. A lot worse. 

Combeferre had been trying to offer silent support, the chemist’s warm brown eyes had been glancing over at Grantaire the entire time they were in the cab with a mixture of concern and compassion but Grantaire had only felt worse in the end for ignoring him and staring out of the window.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something about Enjolras’s had been off, different. He had been trying to find out _what_ exactly that was for the last three weeks but he couldn’t quite grasp it. There had been something in his voice, his expression that had almost seemed… desperate if Grantaire hadn’t known better.

He knew he was trying to get a rise out of Enjolras, always. Loosening those tightly wrapped strings of control holding him back.

But this time it had looked more like he had been about to crumple instead of getting even more furious and frustrated.

Maybe it was just wistful thinking. Or fear.

Or Grantaire was going irrevocably insane. Finally.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands until he saw stars.

He should take a shower; get into his pyjamas and sleep. Enjolras didn’t like it when someone was too late for work. As if 8.30 was in any way a reasonable time to start working.

Grantaire reluctantly heaved himself up from the bed and shuffled slowly in the vague direction of the bathroom when there was a knock at the door.

 

He frowned and sighed, then went to the door and opened just as it knocked a second time.

“Really Ferre, you don’t –” he started and then he had the bizarre feeling of a déjà vu when Enjolras strode into the room, grabbed Grantaire by the front of his t-shirt and with a swing and a push pressed his back right into the door that, under their combined weight, slammed shut.

 

***


	12. Part II. Grantaire V/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See this as ... making amends for the cliffhanger last time. I'm sorry, I just really like cliffhangers. Writing them that is. Well, anways, I hope you enjoy the chapter! ♥

 

 

 

 

V/VII

 

***

 

“Christ, you really don’t know how to let go of an argument, do you?” Grantaire groaned and let his head fall back against the door as well. For good measure.

Enjolras didn’t reply. Instead he took another step _closer._

Grantaire had the bizarre thought that Enjolras’s eyelashes, long and fair and really, really close, reminded him of golden sunrays caressing Enjolras's cheeks.

 

Madness, utter madness. There it was.

 

“What are you doing here?” Enjolras breathed out, almost a whisper but with their faces only inches apart Grantaire didn’t have problems understanding him at least as far as hearing his voice. He wasn’t quite able to concentrate on the words what with Enjolras’s eyes boring into his, keeping him in place just as firmly as the arm against his chest or the hand on his shoulder. It was especially difficult because the words didn't even make any sense. At all. But Grantaire was wise enough to not point that out. 

The actual question should be what _Enjolras_ was doing here. In the wrong hotel. In Grantaire's room. Basically in the middle of the night. 

God, he was getting old when he thought of 9pm as the middle of the night. 

Enjolras didn't seem to be  patient in waiting for an answer. The arm pressing Grantaire chest made it not exactly easy to breathe. Enjolras close proximity wasn't helpful either but he either didn't notice Grantaire's struggle or didn't care. 

“Why. Are you here?”

Enjolras’s voice was shaking. He didn’t even try to hide it, wat was new. The open, raw emotions displayed on his face were new, ungraded and terrifyingly so.  

 

Grantaire was thinking he might be terrified with his heart beating so hard in his chest it hurt, with his breathing just as raged as Enjolras’s, only more shallow, his muscles tense under the other man’s grip but he didn’t put up a fight.

He wasn’t the second raging force  clashing right against Enjolras’s this time.

“I told you why,” he said calmly in an atempt to somehow handle the situation that didn't really work out. 

Enjolras let out an unsteady exhale of air against Grantaire’s skin. “You told me _nothing._ You…”

One hand let go of Grantaire’s shoulder and again, he could have freed himself, not easily but still, and again he didn’t.

He didn’t move at all, except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, when Enjolras pulled one gun – he knew for fact that there were at least two somewhere close to the other man’s body – out of his coat and held it loosely in one hand as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

 

Grantaire didn’t even cast it a glance.

He focused on Enjolras, didn’t look away.

He knew how Enjolras’s face looked like when he was angry. He had seen, and caused it, often enough.  Narrowed eyes and lips pressed tightly together, that one muscle in his jaw that everyone who didn’t pay close attention would overlook twitching slightly.

He looked nothing like this.

Enjolras’s eyes were wide, his pupils _huge_ leaving only a thin ring of blue stark against white and black. His lips, open, trembled with every breath ghosting over Grantaire’s face and the word desperate sprang to his mind again, only that this time it was much more difficult to simply put it off.

“You told me –,” he started, stopped. Breathed in. Started again, “You believe in something and still, still you act like you don’t believe in _anything._ ” He shook his head. The gun was hovering somewhere close to their temples.

Grantaire didn’t look at it. Maybe he should have cared but he didn't. Something he could worry about later. He didn’t care about anything else but the look of Enjolras’s eyes.

“You never do as you’re told, you’re always _mocking_. Me, all of us, everything. I don’t understand, I don’t. What would make you stay, what would make you do that if you don’t – ? You shouldn’t _be_ here. It doesn't make sense. I –“

Enjolras’s hand, his fingers trembling, moved upwards resting the barrel of the gun against Grantaire’s temple. He dropped his head when he took another deep breath and golden hair brushed along the tip of Grantaire’s nose. He looked up again.

 

No. It wasn't desperation.

Confusion.

Fear.

 

“I don’t have-,” Enjolras started again but stopped himself mid-sentence, biting down onto his lip.

“Control,” Grantaire finished without hesitation.

Yes, he knew perfectly well he was playing with fire and maybe he was crazy,  mad evn. Maybe he was going to get burned, burn. Maybe he was going to rot in hell for it - maybe, maybe, maybe - but he loved every second.

“God, look at you.” His voice felt foreign in his throat, so much he hardly even recognized it. He had certainly never heard it sound like that. Low, raged, almost reverent.

 

Enjolras blinked a few times rapidly.

Breathed out.

Stepped back.

 

Grantaire thought about protesting for a brief, surreal moment but it was better that he didn’t. 

  
Enjolras looked like a caged animal as he stepped back and back - Grantaire didn’t move- to the coffee table in the middle of the room. With one trembling hand he reached into his pocket and Grantaire stopped breathing.

He had suspected that whatever Enjolras had felt the need to hold onto so often during the last weeks was his totem. He had suspected but still not really expected to be right. 

 

It was an hour glass.

 

A small one - small enough to fit into Enjolras’s fist when he closed his fingers around it - decorated with little, elegant ornaments. He put it down onto the table, his fingers shaking so much it fell over at the first try. The second time it stood.

The sand ran down evenly, undisturbed by everything else going on around it.

Enjolras stared at it and Grantaire could pinpoint the exact moment the expression of his eyes turned into horror.

He dropped the gun that he was still holding in the other hand like it had burned him, turned to Grantaire who was still leaning against the door, back to the hour glass, the gun, Grantaire who couldn’t look away.

“Oh my god.” Enjolras’s voice was only a whisper, appalled and shaken. His hands flew to his hair, a shocked stream of curses falling out of his mouth that Grantaire didn’t really hear - there might have been a sorry in between there too - with all the blood rushing through his ears when something, he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to call it madness or rather instincts, kicked in and he stepped away from the wall.

“You,” Grantaire said softly, his throat dry. During all the shouting and arguments he had never felt like bursting from the inside as much as he did right then. Louder, “are an idiot.”

 

Enjolras stopped pacing and muttering and running his hands through his hair and stared.

 

Grantaire took another step forward, slowly. “You really don’t know the reason why I’m staying?”

Enjolras stared wordlessly a second longer, then shook his head. They were almost five steps apart but Grantaire could still see how wide his eyes were, blue and black and dazed, how endless his lashed, how red his lips.

How _beautiful_ he was and beautiful didn’t even barely cover it.

 

“You.”

 

The moment the word left Grantaire’s lips it was like someone had lifted the giant weight he hadn’t even been aware of off his shoulders and he felt a smile breaking through the tension and the fear, helpless and at the same time relieved.

“I believe in you, you idiot.”

And he let out a singular note of slightly hysterical laughter, he couldn’t stop himself. He felt breathless from the look of Enjolras’s eyes on him.

He didn’t know what he had to expect, Grantaire had never considered actually telling Enjolras, well, anything and certainly not when the other man had been waving a gun around and doubting reality halfway down a breakdown only seconds ago.

He had never considered telling him anything, not ever really, if he had only one bit of common sense left. He probably didn't. Not when it came to Enjolras at least. 

In a split second all of the other man's possible reactions flickered through Grantaire’s mind. Shouting, punching, storming out. Disbelief, disgust, anger.

  
Enjolras blinked. Blinked again.

 

Before Grantaire could even _start_ to comprehend what was happening Enjolras had crossed the room with long, frenzied steps.

One, two, three, four. Two more before he cupped Grantaire’s face with his hands, long fingers firm and steady on Grantaire’s skin and they were crushing into the door.

The back of Grantaire’s head collided with the hard surface.

 

And then Enjolras crossed the last bit of distance between them and pressed his lips against Grantaire’s.

 

A statement more than a kiss, closed-mouthed and bruising, hard and fast.

Grantaire didn’t even have time to close his eyes before Enjolras drew back again.

His eyes were boring into Grantaire’s, too dark and searching.

His mind was desperately trying to comprehend the fact that Enjolras’s lips had been on _his lips_ because yes, but also what the hell? No, not hell. Heaven.

It took him some moments, probably a lot more than it felt like, to notice Enjolras didn’t step back further. Their faces were still only inches apart. He just stayed where he was. His hands slid into the strands of Grantaire’s hair, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones, resting there, waiting.

 

Grantaire realized with a start that Enjolras was waiting for his _permission._

 

 

His breath was ghosting over Grantaire's lips and he managed a singular, jerky nod because he didn’t remember how to do literally anything else.

Despite everything he was still somewhat surprised when Enjolras captured his lips with his own the second time, a _second_ time, and despite the small interval this second kiss wasn’t any different from the first, equally forceful and breathtaking and despite –

Every despite in Grantaire’s head died down when Enjolras tongue traced his bottom lip before he bit down, making Grantaire gasp.

  
Enjolras used the moment to lick into Grantaire’s mouth, kissing him fiercely, all tongue and teeth, pressing impossibly closer as if he was trying not to leave a fragment of space between them.

Grantaire’s hands, until then hanging uselessly at his sided, reached up, longing to touch but not sure if allowed, to rest tentatively on Enjolras’s hips.

Enjolras bit down onto his lip harder.

Grantaire’s fingers clenched in the fabric of Enjolras’s red coat, that stupid, tailored, anything but inconspicuous red coat. God, Grantaire loved that coat.

Enjolras made a small, pleased sound in the back of his throat and then his mouth was gone from Grantaire’s. The sound of protest died halfway through and turned into a chocked groan as Enjolras started kissing along his jaw, kissing, biting, licking, successfully drowning out all the thoughts in Grantaire’s head that tried to figure out _what was happening_ or _why_ it was happening.

He found himself not caring about anything but the feeling of lips on his throat, the heat and a pulse that had nothing to do with blood and everything with Enjolras. His body pressed against Grantaire’s, his fingers twined through Grantaire’s. Their mouths as they slit together again if only for a quick, bursting moment.  
Enjolras leaned back just a bit.

Grantaire kept his eyes closed and breathed out.

He could taste Enjolras on his tongue, sweet like the too much sugar he drank his coffee with.

He didn’t open his eyes when he felt Enjolras’s left hand sliding out of his hair, dragging over skin, skin that felt too tight and too hot for his body, Enjolras’s thumb dipping into the hollow of Grantaire’s throat. His hand was running along Grantaire’s shoulders, over his bicep, down his side.

Grantaire’s breath hitched as long fingers steadily made for the hem of his shirt, leaving his stomach impossibly fluttery and his head blank.

Enjolras’s hand halted.

Their noses brushed together when he tilted his head and Grantaire thought he might be able to feel the tips of Enjolras’s lashes ghosting over his cheek.

“Grantaire?”

It was barely a question, only insinuated by the slight upturn of his voice.

Grantaire wasn’t sure what it was. It was a whisper. It was a low, decided request. A challenge as everything they did always was.

Grantaire opened his eyes.

Enjolras drew back so he could look at him.

There wasn’t any confusion left in his eyes, none of the turmoil or uncertainty, only open, unrestrained want, just a touch soft around the edges.

In the last minutes – or only seconds or maybe hours, Grantaire had a tendency to forget how something as unimportant as the concept of time worked when Enjolras was around – he had found out so many new expressions Enjolras’s face was capable of that he hadn’t expected to actually see _ever._

Grantaire was completely, utterly, downright overwhelmed.

 

“Stop,” Enjolras said.

That at least set something in Grantaire’s fairly incoherent mind in motion because no, _stopping_ was at the very bottom of the list of things he wanted right then.

“What…,” was everything he managed to get out, hardly a proper word at all.

Enjolras pressed a kiss right under his ear and Grantaire didn't feel the need for any more atempts of speaking. Enjolras was quite good at talking himself. 

“Stop.”

Another kiss at the point where Grantaire’s jaw met his neck.

“Thinking.”

A trail of kisses, closer and closer to his mouth.

“I.”

Grantaire closed his eyes.

“Don’t.”

Enjolras’s lips where dangerously close to his. 

“Want.”

A kiss right to the corner of his mouth.

“ _This._ ”

With a sigh, or maybe it was a moan, he barely registered making a sound at all, Grantaire pressed up and caught Enjolras’s lips with his own.

Enjolras met him halfway in a kiss firm, bruising, on the verge of painful, perfect and Grantaire didn’t have a word for whatever _this_ was and he didn’t need one. He didn’t need one when he had the feeling of Enjolras's hair between his fingers, the taste of him on his tongue, all the ways their bodies touched.

His hands reached for every inch of skin. None of them was willing to let go, only for the necessary seconds it took for Grantaire to push Enjolras’s coat off his shoulder, uncaringly letting it fall to the ground where it was quickly joined by Grantaire’s shirt and not just as quickly by Enjolras’s because buttons turned out to be quite a challenge for frenzied moving hands, shaking from want.

And then there was even _more_ skin, pale, scattered with light freckles, to touch, to trace with fingers and hands and mouth.

They stumbled away from the door in a heap of tangled limbs and tongues, reaching for belts and waistbands, nearly knocking over the coffee table and eventually making it to the bed more out of sheer luck than anything else.

They fell back, Enjolras first, pulling Grantaire on top of him, tangling them in the sheets.

Enjolras’s skin was flushed, heated and _everywhere_ , against Grantaire’s chest and arms and legs, pressure and movement, and Grantaire kissed him.

  
He kissed him, and kissed him, kept kissing him and had no idea what he was doing, and kissed him anyway.

 

***


	13. Part II. Grantaire VI/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for letting you wait so long. I moved last week because I'm starting university in October so that was sort of stressful and I only got my internet access today (finally!). So here's the new chapter, thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy it! ♥

 

 

VI/VII

 

***

 

Grantaire woke up smiling.

  
That itself was quite the rare happening because Grantaire usually wasn’t very fond of both waking up and everything that followed right after.

This morning he enjoyed a pleasant feeling of simple contentment for a few moments, his thoughts still slow and sleepy seconds after waking up.

The sun shone through the thin curtains of the hotel windows and warmed his back and mind.

He sighed, eyes still half closed, and stretched, the joints in his back cracking loudly and relieving in the silence of the room. There were only distant noises on the floor, some cars down on the street and the sound of a running shower close by.

Very close.

Close as in right in the next room.

Grantaire’s eyes snapped open and he sat up so abruptly that it took his head a couple of seconds to stop spinning.

He realized two things at the same time.

For once, he was naked. Not such a huge surprise if he had to be honest but – secondly – the clothes scattered all over the floor weren’t exclusively his own.

He spotted a terrifyingly familiar red object right when the sound of the shower stopped.

 

To say he panicked was a bit of an understatement.

 

Rationally he probably should have looked for something like underwear first but well, rationality couldn’t exactly be considered his strong suit.

Also acting rational didn’t seem like the most convenient tactic in that moment because what Grantaire remembered from last night wasn’t anywhere close to being possibly explained by rationality.

His plan to stand up didn’t really work out though when his legs didn’t do what he wanted them to do and tangled in the sheets and he landed on the floor with a loud oof-sound.

It hurt but obviously it didn’t hurt enough to wake him up.

If this was a dream – and god, the possibility that it wasn’t – he better wanted it to end soon or he was going to hate, hate, hate reality even more so than usually.

Fortunately his jeans were in arms-reach and he tried to ignore the trembling of his hand when he reached into the back pocket, fingers closing around the familiar shape of the silver flask. It took three tries to uncap it and a lot of mental cursing at himself for choosing such and impractical totem all those years ago. The moment he brought it to his lips the door of the bathroom opened.

 

Surprisingly – shockingly - the flask was empty.

 

Enjolras stepped into the room, dressed in nothing but his unfairly tight jeans hanging low on his hips and one, two, three, four mouth-shaped, purple bruises stark against the pale skin of his chest. He regarded Grantaire with a single raised eyebrow. His curls, still damp, were plastered against his temple and forehead.

If he hadn’t been holding the evidence right in his hand Grantaire would have outright laughed hysterically at anyone who would have been trying to convince him that he wasn’t dreaming.  
Even more so when a small smile tugged up the right corner of Enjolras’s mouth.

 

No, not a smile. A smirk.

 

Grantaire stared.

Enjolras stared back, clearly amused.

No one said anything for a few moments, then the other man’s smirk turned into a less smug and more teasing smile.

“Bit early to start drinking, don’t you think?”

Grantaire’s throat felt dry. “Don’t worry. I don’t drink,” he felt the irrational need to point out. “Not anymore.”

“Right,” Enjolras said dryly and then, “You’re not making any sense.”

Grantaire wanted to reply something like, “You’re not making any sense,” but Enjolras had already turned around as if Grantaire’s offhanded commented didn’t concern him anymore. He actually didn’t seem concerned by anything at all, neither his own half-dressed stare or Grantaire’s completely undressed stare or the general state of the hotel room – clothes all over the floor and rumpled sheets – that basically screamed sex, loud and clear.

 

They had have sex in a hotel room.

Fantastic sex. Incredible sex.

With each other, Grantaire’s brain supplied incredibly helpful like a lovesick, giddy teenager.

 

They had kissed more times than he had been able to keep count of, more importantly Enjolras had kissed him, touched him, willingly and wanting, had looked at him, really looked at him and somehow Grantaire felt like it had been the first time ever and alright, that was just melodramatic on his part.

But also, and he was silently surprised even though he hadn’t had time to think about the outcome of this, Enjolras had stayed.

He hadn’t left in the middle of the night but stayed and Grantaire had no idea but hoped, god he hoped, that was a good thing because how was he supposed to handle not having this part of Enjolras, now that he didn’t only wonder but knew how it felt like, they felt like when they moved together, skin against skin and lips against lips. When he knew the sounds Enjolras made, quiet half-moans between shaky breaths, how he looked like in the barely lit darkness of a small hotel room in the night and the softness of the morning light that shone through the window as he reached down to pick up a pullover from the floor.

 

If Grantaire had still been sitting on the bed he would have probably fallen out a second time when a knock on the door mercilessly ripped him out of his thoughts.

 

He scrambled up, not really knowing what he planned on doing, but Enjolras was already at the door and before Grantaire was able to protest, opened it.

“Morning,” Enjolras said entirely to casual and left the door open for Combeferre who stood in the hallway.

“Good morning,” he said slowly and to Grantaire’s utter horror didn’t even so much as blink.

It stared with the eyebrows, slowly lifting arches that spread downward to the eyes, widening slightly, not in surprise but with a well-placed portion of unswerving awareness, a look that basically spelled out a capitalized drawn-out, “Well…” complete with dramatic pause and half of a sigh.

It was a look that made Grantaire incredibly aware of the fact that he was standing in the room with nothing but a bed sheet somehow wrapped around him.

Enjolras on the contrary didn’t notice the obvious tension of Grantaire’s discomfort.

He really didn’t. He wasn’t as good an actor to pretend so perfectly.

He pulled his pullover over his head – despite everything else Grantaire still had the surreal feeling of loos at that – then bend down to pick op his coat and another item of closing.

Grantaire only realized it was his own shirt when it hit him in the face. He let out an undignified hmpf but when he looked up again Enjolras smiled, oh so slightly.

God, was he beautiful.

“You should take a shower,” that beautiful, beautiful, cruel being said nonchalantly then turned to Combeferre. “At Feuilly’s in forty minutes.” Looking back at Grantaire he added, “Don’t be late.”

Then he was out of the door leaving Grantaire alone with Combeferre’s calm brown eyes fixed on his.

Grantaire swallowed. God, he was really, utterly naked, wasn’t he?

He straightened in an attempt to pull of some dignity and thought about if he should just run or excuse himself to the bathroom before.

Combeferre narrowed his eyes behind his glasses.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked and the softness of his tone was only the second thing that took Grantaire by surprise.

“Um…No, I,” he managed to get out while Combeferre waited patiently. “I don’t think so.” He would need some time to think about it on his own before being able to even know what he was talking about.

The chemist looked at Grantaire thoughtfully for another few seconds and nodded.

“I’ll call a cab.” He turned around and Grantaire bit onto his lower lip hard, then made his decision.

 

“Ferre?”

 

The other man turned back to him, waiting while Grantaire considered how to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. In the end he simply said, “You don’t seem surprised.”

As if the morning wasn’t already crazy enough Combeferre’s eyes suddenly brightened. Then he threw his head back and laughed.

Grantaire didn’t know how he should possibly react to that and just stared, trying to keep his mouth from falling open.

After a few more chuckles and shaking his head Combeferre slid his askew glasses back up his nose and regarded Grantaire with a warm, barely concealed pleased expression. “Grantaire, Courfeyrac and I have known Enjolras for over fifteen years now so believe me when I say that this,” the chemist gestured at the mess that was the hotel room and the sheet wrapped around Grantaire who was too mortified to care about the blush rising in his cheeks, “has been a long time coming.” He chuckled again before he left the room then, shaking this head again and muttering an amused “Surprise, ha” under his breath.

It took Grantaire about a minute of motionless staring at a point on the wall next to the doorframe without really seeing anything before he remembered he was supposed to take a shower.

 

***

 

They were earlier than Marius and Courfeyrac and at least that was normal.

Then again, Grantaire had to admit as he poured himself his usual cup of morning coffee, nothing appeared to be in any way unusual.

Enjolras was talking to Feuilly, a conversation that involved a lot of hand waving and serious looks that Grantaire didn’t even bother listening to because they always waited with the really important stuff – or at least what Grantaire considered important – until everyone had arrived. Combeferre wasn’t actively taking part in the conversation either but at least he seemed to be paying attention when he wasn’t casting glances at the door or his watch.

 

Just an ordinary morning.

Everything was totally fine.

 

Then Enjolras looked up while Feuilly did another elaborate hand waving gesture and Grantaire felt like someone had switched off his air supply when their eyes met for one, two, three seconds before he turned back to the point man.

Grantaire cursed under his breath when he realized he had put about eight spoons of sugar into his coffee without noticing what he was doing.  
He could see Enjolras smiling.

The door flew open.

“Good morning, oh favourite people of mine!” Courfeyrac exclaimed and Grantaire wished he could have the urge to strangle him but Courfeyrac was like a playful kitten you couldn’t possibly be angry at when he smiled like that so Grantaire simply rolled his eyes tiredly while the other man crossed the room just to stop dead in his tracks right in the middle.

He looked around, then said slowly, “wait. Something’s different.”

No one said anything. Combeferre pushed his glasses up his nose.

Grantaire concentrated very hard on the cup of coffee in his hand instead of doing something as stupid as well, look at Enjolras or something equally absurd while Courfeyrac obviously tried to stare a hole through his skull. When Grantaire reluctantly looked up to meet the architect’s bright green eyes a smile appeared on the other man’s face that spread into a full-blown grin when he turned to Enjolras.

“You’re late.”

“Sorr –,” Marius started but Courfeyrac cut him off with a quick hand gesture, still beaming at Enjolras. “You aren’t,” he stated mater of fact and clicked his tongue rather disapprovingly. “How rude of you.”  
Enjolras huffed and rolled his eyes but the smile on his face couldn’t possibly be a figment of Grantaire’s imagination. “Let’s get back to work.”

The architect didn’t say anything to contradict him, winked at Grantaire and flopped onto the sofa next to Combeferre with a shit-eating grin plastered over his face.

Grantaire wished he could drown himself in coffee.

 

***

 

Enjolras had a plan.

Grantaire wasn’t sure when he had thought of said plan but he wasn’t stupid - foolish maybe, from time to time, but not stupid - and he knew when a plan was good and when it wasn’t.

Enjolras had a good plan.

It wasn’t that surprising because the man was a genius and the best at his job by far. The surprising part was that the plan was a perfect mixture of both Enjolras’s strategy and Grantaire’s ideas from the day before put together to a simple, yet brilliant scheme that he couldn’t have contradicted if he had wanted to.

So instead of making snide remarks and just generally annoying Enjolras with his presence Grantaire sat on the floor leaning against Feuilly’s legs and nodded from time to time or adding a thoughtful agreement while drinking coffee after coffee and the morning passed in a blur of words and pictures until Enjolras announced they could take a ten minute break at half past twelve.

Grantaire left the room with an excuse to go for a smoke, a habit he’d taken up since they arrived in Brussels, and after a short walk found a quiet corner behind the hotel building.

Enjolras arrived two minutes later after Grantaire had almost finished his first cigarette, looking positively perfect in his red coat and black jeans, with tousled blond hair and almost equally red lips.  
His leaned against the wall next to him and his eyes lingered for a moment on Grantaire’s fingers curling around the cigarette.

Grantaire didn’t speak first. He could have asked one of the hundreds of questions that were burning in his head and chest but he didn’t. Instead he waited for Enjolras to talk if that was what he wanted. He didn’t have to wait long.

“You are awfully quiet today.”

“You considered my advice,” he replied blowing a breath of smoke into the air. “If we’re already at stating the unusual.”

Enjolras narrowed his eyes and finally this was familiar territory again. He took a step closer and it didn’t make Grantaire’s breath catch in his throat even though couldn’t help his heart from beating faster.  
“I am capable of taking constructive criticism into consideration, you know.” Enjolras’s tone was more sarcastic than angry, his eyes more black than blue.

Grantaire huffed. “Are you now?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

He turned slightly to look at Enjolras who was watching him in return.

He knew that he could have asked for explanations, that he had every right to ask what they were doing, what that tentative this was. He didn’t want to. He wanted to keep on to it as long as he would be allowed to.

Grantaire had never pretended to be remarkably brave. Let alone self-preservative.

So instead of asking at which point in the future Enjolras planned on breaking his heart he simply shrugged. “It’s a good plan.”

The other man’s eyes never left Grantaire’s face. “You really think so?”

He let out a short laugh. “Believe me chief, I’d let you know if I didn’t.”

“Good,” Enjolras said and then he finally closed the rest of distance between them. Warm, full lips found Grantaire’s and the miserable end of the cigarette fell out of his hand as he pulled Enjolras closer by the lapels of his coat in a motion that already felt like a reflex.

 

Enjolras’s hands tightened in Grantaire’s hair and if he closed his eyes Grantaire could almost pretend it was because he didn’t want to let go either.

 

***


	14. Part II. Grantaire VII/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First I apologize for the delay, I just started uni and I was a little bit overwhelmed (still am) by all the new impressions and stuff but it's been really great so far. Here's the last chapter of Part II. I didn't want to split the "action" somewhere in the middle so that's why it is a little longer. Enjoy! ♥

 

VII/VII

 

 

***

 

_2 weeks later_

 

On a train to

F.R.A.N.K.F.U.R.T. – G.E.R.M.A.N.Y.

 

***

 

Combeferre’s hands were steady when he interjected the needle with cautious, precise movements.

Grantaire was wondering how it was possible that he wasn’t even reacting anymore to the quick moment of pain when it happened. He wondered how he had been able to get used to it.

He wondered about a lot of things at the same time to keep himself from thinking too much about the man in the train seat opposite of him, face already slack as he had been pretty much knocked out by the Combeferre’s sedative that Marius had been able to administer earlier by pretending to bump into him. Grantaire wondered what had happen to the clumsy, shy, awkward young man he had met over two years ago because even though he still was all those things, he at the same time couldn’t have become more different.

He didn’t wonder if they were going to make it.

He didn’t wonder what would happen if they didn’t.

He looked at Enjolras who sat next to Courfeyrac who was already dreaming and bright blue eyes turned from cold, focused and concentrated to soft for just a moment when their eyes met.

Grantaire wondered when the world had started to light up whenever Enjolras looked at him like that. Always, he thought when sleep overtook him.

 

***

 

Grantaire opened his eyes to an incredibly fancy bathroom in shades of silver and dark green that looked less suited for an office building than for a high-end brothel. He has seen disturbingly many of those during his carrier of choice and not for the reasons one might assume.

He was certainly not averse to admitting that Courfeyrac was an exceptional architect, quite the opposite really, but he did have a very questionable taste when it came to interior design.

 

Grantaire supposed the venus fly traps were edgy or something like that, hell if he knew.

 

He concentrated as he looked at himself in the mirror. There were dark shadows under his eyes but despite that he didn’t look too bad actually, just really tired. He looked down and closed his eyes. After taking a deep breath he looked up again into the face of a pretty brown-eyed, blonde-haired woman with lipstick-red mouth and the topbutton of her blouse opened. He closed his eyes again and then there was a stylish pair of glasses perched up on his nose, the woman smiled a small, coquettish smile.

He found a blackberry, headset and a heavy looking folder under the sink, just as planned. Perfect.

The first step however almost ended with him breaking his legs and a really not ladylike, colourful curse because right, high heels.

He had forgotten about those for a second.

Grantaire straightened the dark, navy-blue pencil skirt with perfectly manicured fingers, the woman in the mirror put up another charming smile, then he left the bathroom with confident, enthusiastic steps.

When he passed the elevator he quickly glanced at Courfeyrac who grinned at him in a blue overall standing on a latter and looking far too cheery for a caretaker but Grantaire guessed everyone had a different way to deal with stressful situation.

 

The whole office floor was almost entirely separated by see-through doors and glass walls that were at the same time unsettling and creating just the perfect atmosphere of transparency that they had aimed for. On the other side of the windows stretched a huge city, all high buildings and satellite dishes.

 

Grantaire purposefully headed to the desk in front of the room with the label “Department manager - M. Babet” on the door in bold, white letters.

The view from the outside was subtly prevented by a light grey window film that made it impossible to look inside but not the other way around and Grantaire admitted that Courfeyrac had rather outdone himself with the design of the dream.

He was almost ready to, in favour of that, overlook the absolutely terrible choice of plants. The thing on the desk looked like the hybrid of a hedgehog and a bath sponge and that was the nicest thing he could think of.

Grantaire had just sat down and pretended to accept a call when Enjolras stepped in through the door of the stairwell.

The blonde man looked intimidating, that said, absolutely perfect in a black suit and dark blue tie that made his bright, crystal eyes stand out even more and the way Grantaire nervously flicked a stand of hair over his shoulder then, well it wasn’t entirely an act.

Enjolras walked over to the front desk with a polite smile and Grantaire inconspicuously took a deep breath.

 

Their plan was good.

Just follow the plan.

 

Grantaire held up a finger when Enjolras approached the desk. The other man nodded in acknowledgement while Grantaire pretended to continue the phone call with a slight frown and tight smile. Eventually he scribbled something down onto a piece of paper and hung up.

“Good afternoon,” Enjolras said politely, “I have an appointment with Monsieur Babet at 2. Monsieur Charles.”

“Monsieur Charles,” Grantaire repeated equally polite but with a lot more charming flutter of eyelashes and opened a calendar on the computer. “I see, I will inform Monsieur Babet that you are here. If you would take a seat over there for a second, please.” He pointed at the comfortable looking sofas next to another monstrosity of plant just across the door to the bureau.

“Of course.”

Grantaire nodded and stood up, gathering phone, after some seconds of contemplation a folder from the shelf and the note in one hand. He walked over to the door with trained, graceful steps and knocked.

He ignored the hammering of his heart in his chest, an ability he had perfected over the years of working in the business.

 

The door opened automatically.

Looking at the thin, tall man sitting on the desk there shouldn’t have made Grantaire’s grip on the folder in his hand tighten.

He had seen a photo of him after almost five years and had had his freak out already, he had seen him sleeping in the train but looking into the opened, watery blue eyes was still a shock but Grantaire recovered quickly enough. He was a professional god damnit, so he was certainly going to act like one here and not think about how he was basically handing himself over to the people who had tried to kill him on a silver plate.

 

“Yes?” Babet asked without looking up. He sounded bored.

 

Grantaire looked down, batted his eyelashes a bit, stood up straighter. “Your 2 o’clock appointment is here boss, Monsieur Charles. Also… ehm…,” he trailed off uncertainly what eventually made Babet look up with a scowl.

“What?”

Grantaire nervously slit the glasses a little higher up his nose. “Well, you just got a call from Monsieur Claquesous.” The man’s face froze. “I told him that you’re indisposed at the moment but he was very insistent.”

“What does he want?” Babet’s voice was tense.

“I- I don’t know Monsieur, he didn’t specifically say. He sounded very upset and mentioned having a word with the bosses –“ Grantaire silenced mid-sentence when Babet practically jumped out of his chair, a hunted expression on his face. His eyes flickered momentarily to the left, then back to Grantaire.

“Where is he?”

“He was already in the building when he called Monsieur. I told him to wait in conference room number three on seventh -”

“Right,” Babet interrupted again, “Tell Monsieur Charles there’s been an emergency. I have to go.” And with that he rushed past Grantaire and straight to the elevator. Grantaire could hear a colourful curse when Courfeyrac in caretaker attire told him that the there had been a technical error and the elevator weren’t functioning until further notice.

 

Grantaire held back a grin. That had been easy. Genius, really, making the target feel safe, powerful, completely in charge and one little thing out of nowhere sent him right into the trap.

 

As soon as the door to the staircase closed Grantaire was running as well.

“Vase on the left shelf,” he called out to Enjolras who nodded with harsh determination that Grantaire would have found terribly sexy if he had a little more time to think about it. Like that he just rushed past him and Courfeyrac into the elevator. The architect threw him an encouraging smile that suddenly did look tenser than the one only a minute ago.

The doors of the elevator closed.

As soon as Grantaire looked into the mirror he was faced with another familiar man that Grantaire had wished he would never had to see again.

Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, dark everything. Except for a flash of white teeth when his lips turned into a smile that could only be described as sardonic.

Even though there was a shiver running down his spine when his brain caught up with the fact that he was looking at himself in the mirror, no one could say he wasn’t good at his job.

It had been five years since he had seen more of Claquesous than surveillance footage but the sight in the mirror was flawless from the arch of the eyebrows to the tiny scar on the chin.

“ _I found the information_ ,” Enjolras’s voice sounded over Grantaire’s miniature earpiece. “ _Flash drive. The file is coded._ ” A few clicks on keys. “ _Not enough time to decode. I’ll have to memorize it. Starting plan A.2. R, keep him distracted as long as you can._ ”

The elevator stopped and opened. The hallway was still empty and Grantaire rushed to conference room number three, the long black coat fluttering after him like a super villain cape. “Understood chief.”

“ _R, Babet’s past floor six, he’ll be there in less than thirty seconds_ ,” Courfeyrac informed him and Grantaire shut the door behind him.

“Understood.”

 

He had just time enough to take another deep breath and take his position with facing the door with crossed arms and an angry scowl on his face until the door opened.

Babet tried hopelessly to look calm and controlled but Grantaire saw the sweat on the other man’s forehead and the way his left hand clenched in the fabric of his slacks.

“Claquesous,” he said pointedly slow, “I didn’t expect your visit. I didn’t know we had an appointment.”

Grantaire could hear Courfeyrac huffing.

“Oh, don’t even try,” he snarled sarcastically. He didn’t even flinch at the sound of the voice that came out of his mouth, deep and cold and just like he remembered. “I’ve had enough.”

“Enough of what? Care to enlighten me or do you just want to keep being ridiculous?” Babet snapped back petulantly, obliviously ignoring his fear for a moment.  
Grantaire narrowed his eyes and kept his tone dangerously low. “Oh believe me, I do plan to enlighten you.” Babet immediately winced. “I’ve had enough of seeing you ruining what we once were. We came back with a coup Babet, and what are we doing now? Bankers and lawyers, that is what’s ridiculous. I have had enough of watching you not having the guts to do what it takes.”

Babet’s posture turned defiant. “Of course I do! You just obviously don’t seem to understand how delicate the situation is!”

“There’s nothing delicate about this. We’re ready, we’ve build this up again for years. I won’t sit around and do some pathetic, little jokes that you call jobs and wait for the rest of the time just because you’re a coward. I want to talk to the bosses.”

Babet started fidgeting nervously while Grantaire never once looked away.

The other man licked his lips and shook his head. “You can’t. You can’t do that, they chose me, they chose me and not you.”

Grantaire slowly took a step forward. Babet’s hand twitched as if he wanted to grab the handle of the door but he stayed where he was. Stupidly stubborn. “I’m sure I could give it a try, you know, advise them to maybe … reconsider their choices,” he practically purred and Babet turned even paler but then eventually his bruised ego surfaced.

“They don’t trust you.” He let out a short laugh. Grantaire wondered if he had a death wish. “You’re good at what you do but they don’t trust you, don’t you see? No one ever trusts you.”

Grantaire didn’t reply and that was obviously enough for Babet to keep going.

Good. Let him talk.

“That’s why you’re always going to be second, why you were second back then and why you’re second now. Does it sting, huh? Does it sting to know that the whole façade you’re trying to keep up, the whole dangerous and black thing, is only biting you in the butt? Because it is! You’re trying so hard and what does it help you in the end? Nothing. How does it feel to know that they trust me more than you, that they prefer an architect, someone who you always tried to push back over the oh so great Claquesous? And you know who else?” Babet laughed and Grantaire pushed down the anger at being insulted that wasn’t his own. He realized too late what Babet was going to say.

“They even trusted Montparnasse more than you. They trusted a _traitor_ more than you.”

 

The silence icy silence stretched further than the four walls of the room.

Then Enjolras’s voice sounded in Grantaire’s ear, shocked.

“ _What?_ ”

Shit. Oh bloody shit.

Grantaire coughed. “Keep going,” he whispered under his breath.

Babet frowned. “What did you say?”

Grantaire cursed inwardly.

“ _What does he mean, R?_ ”

Oh no, no, no. Not good, not good.

“ _What -_ ”

“God damnit, just keep going!” Grantaire practically growled and already knew it was the wrong thing to do before he finished talking.

A flash of understanding flickered over Babet’s face.

“Who are you?” he asked sharply, “What -”

Grantaire surged forward and knocked him out with one well aimed strike at the temple.

The other man slumped and his unconscious body hit the floor.

Grantaire didn’t even try to stop the fall.

“ _What was that?_ ” Courfeyrac and Enjolras asked at the same time while Grantaire cursed at the abrupt pain in his hand.

“Your fault,” he snapped. “You need to keep going; Babet realized he’s in a dream and someone’s here who doesn’t belong. This whole thing is going to collapse before long!”

“ _R-_ ,” Enjolras started but Grantaire cut him off rigorously.

“Enjolras, it is going to be overrun with projections here in a minute now he’s recognized what’s happening _so finish what we’re fucking here for_ , for Christ’s sake!”

 

Maybe he was too surprised by how Grantaire was suddenly the one giving the orders but Enjolras silenced immediately without protest. Grantaire was going to thank whatever god for that later.

 

He effortlessly slipped back into his own body, producing a glock into his hand with some concentration while the rest of his brain wouldn’t stop chanting, ‘We fucked up, we fucked up’ without stop.

 

Then he heard something crash and the ground started shaking.

 

“Fuck,” Courfeyrac cursed through the earpiece.

Grantaire couldn’t agree more.

When he opened the door he took out the two first projections, two men in fancy suits and raised guns running down the hallway towards him, with clear, quick shots.

Maybe a minute had been optimistic.

“ _R, what is happening up there?_ ” the architect asked alarmed.

“Two armed projections down.”

Another man rushed around the corner. The bullet ran straight through his chest.

“Three.”

The projection staggered back and slid down the wall, leaving a smudge of dark red on light gray. Grantaire didn’t spare him another glance when he hurried to the elevator.

The elevator didn’t move.

“Courf, what the hell is wrong with the elevator?”

 

The building was shaken by another tremor.

 

“ _I don’t know, I can’t get it to work, his subconscious must be starting to break through the design!_ ”

Grantaire bit back another curse that lay on the tip of his tongue. Alright, panicking would help no one here.

Stairs, it was then.

It was more of a jump than run down the four floors with the occasional shakes of the building that almost send him flying into the wall.

Enjolras was mercifully silent but that silence weighted heavier than anything else.

Grantaire wanted to curse, wanted to curse his stupid insistence on doing the right thing that brought them here but all he could do was curse himself for being so stupid, so bloody stupid to not even think about the possibility that Babet or anyone else would mention Montparnasse. The only thing that, next to Grantaire’s general existence and the protective instinct when it came to his friends, that made Enjolras act irrational was his for Grantaire – and anyone else – absolutely incomprehensible trust in Montparnasse and of course, of course Grantaire hadn’t even thought about it. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

 

A shot fell and stopped the crushing chant inside his brain.

A shot that was nowhere near Grantaire.

“Courf?!”

Another two loud noises and a breathless, “ _Fine, we’re fine!_ ” There wasn’t a trace of the previous smile left in the architect’s voice. “ _But you better hurry up or we have to barricade the door without you!_ ”

“No way,” Grantaire growled and rushed down the flight of stairs, taking out another projection and another two that came out of the doors to the other floors before he pushed the door to the final one open and was immediately held a gun to the face.

Courfeyrac hastily lowered it. “Sorry.”

“Oh damnit, apologize later, help me block this fucking door already!”

“It won’t last a second even if we get the table here in one.” The architect grabbed the latter and hoisted it under the handle. “We have to fight them off long enough as possible. There’s no other way, Enjolras needs more time.”

Grantaire was already crossing the room passing the front desk and barging into the bureau. Enjolras didn’t look up, his eyes flying over screen, focused and cold, his lips pressed together in a firm line.

“Two minutes, maximum,” Grantaire announced.

Enjolras didn’t even react but Grantaire didn’t have to time assume the other man hadn’t heard him.

 

The building shook and the image of the city behind the windows was falling into pieces.

 

“Courf, behind the desk!” Grantaire ordered. The architect ducked and the door at the other side of the room was broke down as a dozen projections at once spilled trough it.

The next seconds were a blur of movements, pulled triggers, shots and bodies hitting the floor.

A bullet hit the wall behind them, the glass shattered, crumpling down in shards. Courfeyrac cursed. Grantaire’s next bullet pierced another man in suit to the opposite wall.  
The smell of blood hit the air and Grantaire turned to see the architect’s arm pierced by a huge shard of glass and blood. A lot of blood.

“Get out of here!” he growled.

“No, you need -”

Grantaire rose up from behind the desk sending one bullet fly through the window to their right and the other one to the last attacking projection of what could only be the first troup coming through the door before the man could make use of the riffle in his hands.

He kneeled down beside the architect again. “I can handle this. Get out of here, you moron, and tell Combeferre what happened once we wake up we have to leave as fast as possible."

Without further protestations Courfeyrac nodded, Grantaire could see how hard he was biting his lip from crying out in pain, staggered up and with one, two, three steps flung himself out of the window.

 

A quick fall, a simple kick to wake up.

 

Grantaire turned back to the door, shielded by the desk, with his gun in position and didn’t have to wait long for the next five men to arrive. He took out three before he had to duck to dodge the bullets flying at him.

“Done!” Enjolras shouted, immediately snapped out of his state of motionless concentration and ducked behind the desk as another bullet shattered the other side of the wall.

Alright no, that design was absolutely fucking terrible.

“Then get the fuck out already!” Grantaire shouted back.

Two projections fell when Enjolras’s shots hit them. The window behind him shattered at the third.

The other man moved immediately and Grantaire stood up, certainly not waiting for more subconsciously created henchmen to arrive to shot him.

He was about five metres behind Enjolras when the other man paused at the abyss, the perfectly created city in the background a mess of tumbling sky scrapers, pieces and more pieces, the building shaking under their feet, and turned around, bright, blue eyes locking with Grantaire’s.

“Go!” he shouted and Enjolras jumped.

 

Grantaire hadn’t expected the bullet that hit his left leg and for a moment there was only pain when he staggered forward and his leg gave in, not close enough to the window to fall. He turned his head and behind a new stream of projections, his pain clouded brain wasn’t able to count how many, Babet stared at him with eyes wide open, confusion vanishing and turning recognition. A wide, crucial smile blossomed on the man’s face.

 

Grantaire raised his hand, raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

 

Panic.

Pain.

 

Then nothing left of pain when he opened his eyes, breathing heavily, not really knowing for a moment what happened when Courfeyrac pulled him up from his seat. “We need to leave, now!”

Grantaire’s instincts kicked back in at the words or maybe at the actual short burst of pain when Combeferre dragged the needle out of his skin. Then they were out of the compartment, leaving only a still sleeping but already twitching Babet behind. Grantaire couldn’t look at him, he felt like he was about to throw up.

Their arrival in Frankfurt was announced through the speakers. People spilled out of the compartments towards the exits, listening to music, chatting, laughing, dragging their suitcases through the narrow aisles.

 

They had planned everything perfectly.

 

Except for the most obvious thing that could have happened and Grantaire had no one else to blame but himself. He didn’t look up to meet Enjolras’s eyes that he could feel boring into his skull as they followed Combeferre’s lead, the chemist’s shoulders tense.

Grantaire felt like someone had slowed down his brain, like everything was moving through honey, heavier, delayed somehow. He felt numb and let himself be dragged forward, barely registering what was going on around him until they were on the platform and a hand on his upper arm yanked him back, not violently but firm nonetheless.

“What did he mean?” Enjolras asked again and his voice was like ice.

Grantaire couldn’t find the words to answer.

“Enjolras, we have to leave, now,” Combeferre urged, uncharacteristically tense.

Enjolras didn’t look away from Grantaire once. “We are going to talk about this. The moment you next see me, you are going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

Then he let go of Grantaire’s arm and disappeared in the crowd to find Feuilly to go wherever they were headed to for the next week, while Combeferre gently guided him out of the train station.

Babet had seen him. He had recognized him.

Grantaire felt hopeless as the reality of that thought came crashing down on him.

 

***

 

_One week later_

Z.A.G.R.E.B. – C.R.O.A.T.I.A.

 

***

 

“They have to be here any minute,” Combeferre said and looked down at his watch. 

Grantaire sighed and bit back answering, “I know,” because he didn’t want to sound like an asshole.

Somehow he still startled when there was a knock at the door. He stood up and the chemist let him. They hadn’t talked much, especially not about what had happened exactly. Grantaire hadn’t felt like telling the whole story more than once and Combeferre had patiently accepted his decision.

He had practised composure during that last week, hiding all the fear and anger and helplessness that was threatening to tear him apart from the inside.

Grantaire took a deep breath and opened the door.

 

And all of that composure crumpled when his eyes fell on the person on the other side. He stepped out and threw the door shut behind him. The feeling of overwhelming relief drowned out everything else for a blissful moment when he found himself less leaning, more falling into Jehan’s arms that wrapped around him, holding him fast when choked out breaths that turned into sobs.

“He – he recognized me, he – Babet, he -”

“I know. I know,” Jehan interrupted the nonsensical string of words falling out of Grantaire’s mouth and didn’t let him go, just ran a hand soothingly through his hair as if it would be the solution to every problem in the world.

“They’re going to come after me, aren’t they? After all of us. After –,” Grantaire whispered but couldn’t finish, couldn’t think about it.

Jehan’s silence was answer enough.

 

***

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done with this part of Grantaire's POV. Also thank you for your wonderful comments on the last chapters, I love to hear what you all think. ♥ Have a nice day and see you next chapter when we'll be returning to Enjolras again.


	15. Part III. Enjolras I/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it took me so long to update, I'm so sorry. I suppose I'm one of these overly enthusiastic first-year students who wants to do everything right - as far as I know myself this is so not going to be permanent - so I was incredibly busy during the last weeks. However I am totally going to continue this fic, so even though it might take a while from time to time, I'll keep updating. Alright, enough of me, here's a shiny new chapter in which Courfeyrac gets some much deserved 'screen time' and some people finally get their shit together. Enjoy! ♥

 

Part III.

 

-Enjolras-

 

“It’s harder than you think telling dreams from one another.”

Bastille – Daniel in the Den

 

***

I/VII

***

 

Z.A.G.R.E.B. - C.R.O.A.T.I.A.

 

 

If Combeferre hadn’t immediately raised his hands with a calm but firm exclamation of, “It’s alright,” as he opened the door, Enjolras’s defence mechanisms would have most likely kicked in, putting an end to the whole situation with a raised gun and, or some holes through some heads.

Like that his hand merely twitched momentarily as he took in the hotel room that was crowded with not the expected two but six people instead.

“They picked us up from the airport,” Courfeyrac explained, at least why he and Marius were already there when they should have only arrived about an hour later than Enjolras and Feuilly.

But that still left the question what Bossuet, Bahorel and Cosette were doing there.

Or why Grantaire _wasn’t_ in the room.

 

Cosette was sitting on the armrest of the sofa, legs draped over Marius so that she could have as well been sitting on the young man’s lap. Bahorel jumped up from his chair with a broad grin at the sight of Feuilly.

Enjolras didn’t know which development over the last years he was supposed to find more disturbing. Marius and Cosette were that sickeningly cute couple basically since they first met. Combeferre and Courfeyrac were almost as bad just without the whole actual couple thing so it was really more frustrating than anything else.

However, Bahorel and Feuilly’s disturbingly graphic banter that was definitely some weird way of flirting had become distressingly familiar over the time.

Bahorel simply walked past Enjolras to Feuilly, grabbed the startled man, dipped him and kissed him square on the mouth.

 

Alright, still most disturbing.

 

“Get off me!” Feuilly exclaimed but the effect was a little lost when his voice sounded more like a squeak than he had probably intended. “Asshole,” he added when Bahorel pulled him back up, grin still perfectly in place.

Feuilly punched his shoulder.

The other man didn’t react in the slightest and turned to Enjolras instead as if nothing had happened. “Hey man, good to see you!”

Enjolras let himself be patted on the back and managed a nod and something that hopefully could be counted as a smile. Bossuet waved cheerily from where he was sitting on the floor next to Courfeyrac and Cosette smiled softly at the new arrivals.

“Yes, it’s nice to see you too,” Enjolras said and was about to ask why the three of them had suddenly showed up but then settled on the question that somehow felt more important.

“Where’s Grantaire?”

Combeferre who had sat down next to Courfeyrac again answered, a small frown drawing his eyebrows closer together. “He’s with Jehan.”

 

Enjolras blinked, taken aback.

 

During the last two years they had been in contact with Jehan much more than expected beforehand but it was usually only Bahorel or Cosette, sometimes Bossuet, who then joined the team for a more elaborate job that was just easier to accomplish with more people. Neither of them were trained in dream sharing but definitely qualified when it came to information gathering, surveillance and generally fulfilling the more accustomed understanding of the word spy. They didn’t join them for the missions that concerned more delicate information.

Enjolras did trust Jehan and their ‘employees’. But only to a certain level.

 

He looked at Cosette, Bahorel and Bossuet, considered again without actually considering anything at all because he already knew what he was going to ask next.

“Where?”

Enjolras didn’t miss the way Combeferre’s eyes quickly darted to Courfeyrac, didn’t miss the look they shared. He chose to ignore it.

“I’m not sure, they went down the hall,” the chemist answered calmly but with a hint of warning in his voice, a silent, “Don’t”. Enjolras chose to ignore that as well. He nodded and turned around to leave the room but before he could make more than one step Courfeyrac leaped from where he was sitting on the floor, half draped over Combeferre.

“No!”

Enjolras stopped more surprised at the exclamation that rang through the tense silence than actually ready listen.

The architect grabbed the sleeve of Enjolras’s coat. “No, you can’t go because, because there’s this super important thing I need to talk to you about like right now.” He started dragging Enjolras towards what was probably the bathroom.

“What? No!” He tried to protest but Courfeyrac might have been smaller than him but the architect relentlessly held on to his sleeve while he kept talking over everything Enjolras tried to say. “Yes, we have to discuss that thing, you know, very urgent, very important thing, very much in need to discuss right now.”

 

The door of the bathroom door fell shut, leaving six confused faces staring after them.

 

Enjolras jerked his arm free. “What was _that_?”

Courfeyrac leaned back against the door bringing his body as a barrier between Enjolras and the handle. “Well, I can’t let you go to R right now.”

“And why the hell not?”

“Because,” the architect emphasized, “There’s a reason Jehan and their minions suddenly showed up. Ferre said R looked really upset all week and if he left to talk to Jehan alone than there’s something they have to discuss in private without you barging in on them.”

A feeling of guilt rose inside Enjolras as Courfeyrac mentioned the word upset and then he felt angry at himself because it was ridiculous to feel guilty when he hadn’t been the one making a mistake. Alright, he had made a mistake too with getting distracted during the mission and risking the chance they had but it wasn’t him who had made _the_ mistake, the one that had caused his mistake, all in all, the whole disaster hadn’t been his fault.

“I have enough of R keeping things private,” Enjolras said coldly.

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow and for a moment he looked more amused than serious but he left alone the obvious elephant in the room for then. “He is going to explain what we want to know. Maybe _he_ called Jehan, so we can get the whole picture at once, we know that they’re close to Parnasse somehow.”

Enjolras’s tensed at the mention of Montparnasse. He _needed_ to talk to Grantaire because he simply didn’t want to wait any longer to get the answers to the questions that had been keeping him up during the week, keeping his thoughts occupied every minute he and Feuilly weren’t decoding the material they had gotten out of the godforsaken dream.

“Did you tell Marius what happened?” he asked and Courfeyrac shook his head.

“No, I didn’t. I only told him that there’ve been complications but I thought I’d better not upset him when we only have bits and pieces of information.”

Enjolras nodded absentmindedly. He had told Feuilly about the same. He could have told him, the point man could have most likely dig up at least _some_ more information but the part of him that was stubborn and more hurt and disappointed that he liked to admit, wanted to hear from Grantaire himself what he had been keeping from them.

“Yes, me too,” Enjolras said and could tell immediately that Courfeyrac saw right through him.

“You want to hear from R what he chose to not tell.”

Enjolras didn’t bother denying that. “He lied to us.” 

“He didn’t _lie_ , per se,” Courfeyrac said. “He didn’t tell us about Parnasse yes,  but only because it wasn’t his secret to tell. That’s the same Jehan said back then, remember? And you accepted that. You accepted that _Parnasse_ didn’t talk about Parnasse’s past. This isn't really that much about what's going on. You’re only upset because _Grantaire_ didn’t tell you.”

 

It wasn’t even a question.

 

Enjolras knew what was going to come next. He had been waiting for either Combeferre or Courfeyrac to bring up the subject of the most recent development in his and Grantaire’s… relationship. He was actually quite surprised they had held back for so long but if he thought about it, they had just given him space to figure the whole thing out on his own, letting him take his time to think.

Damnit, they did know him far too well.

It was a strangely comforting thought.

 

Enjolras sighed heavily.

Courfeyrac had the audacity to look slightly amused. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“As if you don’t know,” Enjolras muttered but with a lot less harshness than he intended.

“Well, I know you’ve been shagging,” Courfeyrac said cheerily and Enjolras straight out refused to wince at that. The architect always managed to keep him right on the edge of either wanting to punch or hug him so in the end Enjolras usually did neither. “But until now I have refrained - and believe me, it wasn’t easy - from asking what _exactly_ is going on between the two of you besides, you know, the shagging.”

“Could you _please_ stop saying that?”

The architect merely grinned and Enjolras was pretty sure to be closer to the punching side of things right then.

“Of course, I have enough other options here, what about-”

“No,” Enjolras interrupted him before the conversation could drift any further into that direction. “Please don’t.” The last conversation he had have with Courfeyrac about his own sex life had been when they were sixteen and over ten years later he was still slightly traumatized, not to mention the ones about Courfeyrac’s sex life, thank you very much.

Fortunately the architect didn’t continue.

It was more difficult than expected to put the perfectly logical explanation Enjolras had constructed in his head into words without sounding completely deranged. “We’re not in a relationship, Courf, it’s just sex,” he started and realized that when he said it, it did indeed sound kind of ridiculous because –

“Enjolras, when has anything ever been _just_ something for you?”

“Well, I wasn’t finished yet,” Enjolras protested lamely and Courfeyrac sceptically raised an eyebrow. He looked unusually earnest and sounded more like Combeferre right then. Enjolras momentarily considered hugging him. He didn’t though and instead sat down on the edge of the bathtub because he somehow felt resigned to the fact that this was probably going to take a while longer and Courfeyrac didn’t make any move to change that.

 _He_ obviously wasn’t averse to having this conversation in a locked bathroom which was only like one step away from the broom closet cliché.

“We just don’t talk, okay?” Enjolras started over, “I mean, we do talk, in a way, but it’s really just more arguing about basically everything and snapping at each other all the time. We don’t actually... _communicate_ and it’s been driving me crazy.”

“But you two have always been like this,” Courfeyrac noted, “You didn’t really care about it that much before, did you?”

It had taken a while for Enjolras to figure out that he had went from being bothered about arguing with Grantaire to actually being bothered about not really talking more to Grantaire and he supposed it had really been the second for much longer. 

“When he told me that he’s been working for Patron-Minette,” – and that he does believe in something – “I just, I felt like I didn’t even know him and certainly that I didn’t understand him. And it’s just that it is different when we’re… you know,” he trailed off momentarily and sighed again.

Courfeyrac waited without a word until Enjolras he had ordered the words in his head and eventually continued, “It feels more right in a way, if that’s even a thing that’s possible, because it’s not like I want to be shouting at other people for no good reason most of time and wondering what the hell is actually going on for the rest. It’s like I finally don’t need to do that, to shout or to try figuring him out all the time because there’s at least this something, whatever it is, that makes me feel like there might be a chance that I do understand him. And I don’t need a name for it or anything. It’s good. It’s good, I know that.”

The architect regarded him closly. “So that’s your reason? You _need_ to understand Grantaire?”

Enjolras shrugged. Wasn’t that was he had tried to explain? “I suppose.”

Courfeyrac didn’t seem to be content with the answer. “Really? Are you sure of that because I’m sure none of us understood Parnasse as well and you didn’t sleep with _him_ to understand what’s going on in his head and trusted him to do his job anyway. And you wouldn’t have agreed to work with Grantaire if you didn’t trust him to do the same.”

Enjolras glared at him but didn't answer. He ignored the nagging feeling somewhere in his mind that insisted the architect had a point. 

 

“Hmm,” Courfeyrac said after a while when he realized Enjolras obviously didn't plan on contributing anything else. 

Then, “So you’re in love with him,” and Enjolras nearly choked on nothing but air.

“What? I’m not – _No_. No! How the hell is that the conclusion?!”

Enjolras certainly didn’t like the small, smug smile on the other man’s face but Courfeyrac didn’t seem to take any notice of that or most likely he did but simple didn’t deem it necessary to be all too nice about it.

“Enjolras, you’re not that oblivious. Don’t you think we’re a little old to deny crushes?”

“I’m not denying anything!”

“You’re not?”

“Yes! I mean no. I mean…Damnit,” Enjolras cursed, stumbling over his words, “That’s… you know what you are not allowed to say that!” Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow, still in no way bothered by Enjolras’s agitation “That’s such a hypocritical thing to say for you!”

“And why is that?”

“Oh please,” Enjolras huffed, “You’re practically the textbook definition of denial.”

It wasn’t something they really talked about, he realized, but it kind of felt like the right thing to bring up. Anything else was better at the moment.

 

Enjolras had always felt like it wasn’t his place to interfere in this something, the unspoken ‘potentially’ that always hovered between his two best friends. He had thought about it, certainly, because it had been driving everyone around them kind of crazy but in the end pushing them or scheming could ruin everything so he had resigned himself to waiting until they figured it out. It hadn’t supposed to take that long. It was obvious, the lingering looks, the constant touches, too tender, the private smiles, that there were feelings involved that went beyond friendship but nothing more had ever happened because Combeferre, with the virtues of a stoic, didn’t want to risk their friendship and Courfeyrac was, as far as Enjolras knew, completely oblivious to both of their feelings or else he would have certainly done something about it.

 

But to his surprise Courfeyrac didn’t look confused or caught or even remotely concerned.

“I’m not denying anything,” he said and Enjolras couldn’t help but stare because he was ninety-nine percent sure that his best friend _wasn’t_ joking.

“You’re not?” he still asked incredulously,

Courfeyrac shrugged nonchalantly. “Nope.”

“Are you sure we are talking about the same thing?” Because it didn’t make any sense at all.

“Well, _I_ thought we’re talking about how ridiculously I’m in love with Ferre which I was pretty sure you knew but you’re obviously confused so –“

“No,” Enjolras interrupted him, now completely taken aback, trying to wrap his head around that new information. He couldn't have possibly anticipated the conversation to take _this_ turn. “I knew that! I just didn’t think you knew that!” 

“Why wouldn’t I know that?”

“I don’t know!” Enjolras exclaimed helplessly and there were definitely too many ‘know’s in the conversation now. He was kind of overwhelmed because what the hell was suddenly going on? “You never did anything about it.”

“Of course not! Ferre and I, we’re friends and that’s alright, that’s great. It would just be messy otherwise. We’re good.”

“And both of you are okay with that?” Enjolras asked disbelievingly because he couldn’t imagine that they could have possibly agreed on _that_. He couldn't really think of anything right then actually only wondering why, why the hell they never had this conversation before. 

Courfeyrac frowned. “What do you mean, both of us?”

“Well, you did talk about it, didn’t you?”

“What? No, that’s the whole purpose Enjolras. I don’t want to mess it up. I’m not devastated or anything, I like my life, I like how things are. I’m happy and if think about kissing him once in a while or every hour, more likely, and everything else somehow becomes a blur in the background when I hear his voice and when he’s hurting all I can think about is finding a way to make it better and just every time he’s around I feel safe because I know he’s there and I’m there, well then I can’t change that. But it doesn’t mean it changes anything and it would if I talk about that stupid, big unrequited crush I have on one of my best friends because that would be really, really awkward.”

Enjolras had simply stared at his best friend for the duration of his outburst. He ignored the heavy feeling that was starting to settle in his stomach for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation they were having right then and tried instead to figure out the absolutely impossible idiocy that he very much hoped to have misunderstood.

“Say that again.”

“What?”

“Say that last thing again, what you just said, exactly that.”

“Uhm…,” Courfeyrac started and now he was looking at Enjolras like he was the crazy one, “I don’t want to talk about my big, unrequited crush on one of my best friends because that would be really, really awkward?”

Enjolras closed his eyes took a deep breath. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

“You got to be _kidding_ me!”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What are you talking about?!”

“I can’t believe we never had this conversation before!”

“It didn’t matter Enjolras, because nothing’s going to come of it,” Courfeyrac said and seemed really confused so that Enjolras couldn’t help that a startled laugh escaped his mouth and after that it was really difficult to stop. Maybe it was the pent-up tension, the surreality of the situation or everything else at once, he might as well be crazy.

“I have literally no idea what’s going on anymore,” Courfeyrac announced to no in particular and Enjolras managed to calm down a little and eventually focus on the problem on hand.

“I can’t believe you called me oblivious,” he got out when after taking a deep breath, “when you didn’t even realize your best friend plus the guy you’re in love with has been absolutely crazy about you for _years_.”

 

“What.”

 

“Yeah,” Enjolras said and couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face at the sight of his rapidly blinking friend.

“What?”

“God Courf, Combeferre has been in love with you for ages,” he repeated and finally Courfeyrac seemed to realize what he was hearing because he jumped forward and started to shake Enjolras with both hands.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Enjolras had to laugh again as he grabbed the smaller man by the shoulders to keep them from crashing into the bathtub. “I didn’t want to make things complicated by interfering. I thought you’d be scared shitless or pressured when you hadn’t figured out your feelings on you own.”

Courfeyrac paused for a moment. “Okay, wow, that’s actually surprisingly sensitive of you.”

“Thank you! Wait, what?”

“Not the point!” the architect exclaimed, “The point is that I did figure it out, years ago! How could you not have known that?”

“I was sure you’d do something about it if you had! You always do!”

“This isn’t always! It’s Combeferre! It’s different!”

“It better be!”

“I can’t believe we never had this conversation before! Why did we never have this conversation before?!”

“Why are we screaming?!”

“I don’t know, I’m very emotional right now!”

“Alright!”

“Alright!”

“Go,” Enjolras laughed and gave Courfeyrac a shove towards the door.

“What?”

“You can’t possibly want to be locked in a bathroom with me right now.”

Courfeyrac laughed, slightly high-pitched, and shook his head. “No, I really don’t.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes but he knew he was smiling. “Then go already, you idiot and please put an end to this madness, we’ve been in agony over this long enough.”

Before Enjolras could he react he found himself in a bone-crushing hug that squeezed a good portion of air right out of his lungs and before he could so much raise his arms Courfeyrac had already let go again, a smile on his face made him look the happiest Enjolras could remember ever seeing him.

 

He followed more slowly when Courfeyrac practically ripped open the door. Everyone looked tense and slightly concerned. Combeferre had stood up and had probably been pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom because he stood almost right in front of the door when it opened, eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

“Is everything alright? We thought we heard shou –”

 

No one got to hear the end of the sentence because Courfeyrac had slung his arms around the taller man’s neck and pressed their lips together as if no one and nothing around them was of even remote significance anymore. It took about two seconds before Combeferre reacted by returning the kiss with equal fervour, eyes closed, glasses askew, pulling Courfeyrac even closer. The architect jumped up to wrap his legs around Combeferre’s waist.

Enjolras quickly took a step to the side as they basically crashed into the wall next to the bathroom door what seemed to bring back the awareness of their surroundings because they immediately let go of each other, at least to a point of relative decency because Courfeyrac’s hand was still clenched in Combeferre’s shirt while the chemist didn’t make any move to release his grip around the other man’s waist even though both of them were blushing profoundly.

Combeferre cleared his throat. Courfeyrac grin was so wide that Enjolras feared it might split his face in half.

 

“Wow,” Feuilly deadpanned, eyebrows raised so that they almost disappeared under his red hair.

“Damn,” Bahorel whispered approvingly, “I feel so lame right now.”

The wolf-whistle that came from Cosette seemed to put at least Combeferre out of trance, Courfeyrac still seemed a little delirious when the taller man intertwined their hands.

“Could I… could we talk for a second?” Combeferre smiled, slightly out of breath and eyes never leaving Courfeyracs’. 

Enjolras stepped away when the architect nodded and two seconds later the bathroom door fell shut for another time.

“They’re totally going to have the sex in there, aren’t they?” Marius asked and then immediately turned beet-red when he realized what he’d just said. Cosette laughed and ran her hand through her boyfriend’s hair. “I don’t think Combeferre has the exhibitionist qualities for that.”

Bahorel snorted. “Really? You did see what just happened, right?”

“Besides,” Feuilly added, “they must have so much pent-up sexual frustration, it would be abnormal if they don’t.”

“Ten dollars, say they do,” another voice piped up and Enjolras turned to see Grantaire leaning against the doorframe with a too tight smile.

Enjolras's own smile immediately dropped as their eyes met.

 

***


	16. Part III. Enjolras II/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a terribly sorry for not updating sooner but here's the new chapter, finally. There's some explaining going on that is connected to some things that happened earlier so if there any questions or whatever feel free to ask, I'll do my best trying to explain (because even I had to reread some things a few times while writing this so yeah.) Aaaaanyway, hope you enjoy the chapter! ♥

 

 

II/VII

 

***

 

Enjorlas had thought he’d be angry.

He had a hundred percent counted on being angry because being angry was easier than being hurt and he wanted to be angry but when Enjolras's eyes met Grantaire's all of his intended anger vanished like a breath in cold winter air.

 

Grantaire looked like he hadn’t slept in days, with dark circles under his eyes, the greenish blue of them dull, making him seem even more exhausted and not only physically. The slight upturn of his lips was just a poor excuse for a smile and for a moment Enjolras couldn’t think of anything he was supposed to care about right then, anything that was supposed to matter except for the all-consuming feeling of wanting to simply cross the room and hold the other man and not let go until he didn’t have to see the sorrow on his face just as second longer.

The extent of that realization hit him like a pile of bricks.

 

Enjolras didn’t move.

The world seemed to be frozen in place.

Maybe if it stayed that way, if nothing was ever to happen again he would be able to handle it.

But of course - like it always did - time continued.

 

Jehan who had been right next to Grantaire cleared their throat and started greeting Feuilly, their voices mingled somewhere in the back of Enjolras’s brain.

He still didn’t move.

Grantaire stared back at him, chin raised slightly as if he was challenging Enjolras to do something, shout at him, demand answers like he had so imperiously the last time they had seen each other, in the midst of people moving around them that couldn’t have been less important.

In this moment the situation couldn’t have been more different.

When Grantaire did eventually look away it was only because Cosette had stood up to greet him. Her hair got in the way of Enjolras's view as she hugged the new arrival.

  
The world, noises, people and thoughts came back to Enjolras as if he had been slapped back into conciousness

He looked away quickly suddenly grateful that Combeferre and Courfeyrac were currently doing whatever they were doing because in that way there might be the change no one had noticed his sudden epiphany. He was sure they would have taken one look and knew what was going on in his head.

  
_‘You’re not that oblivious.’_

Hell, Courfeyrac hadn’t even needed that, Enjolras thought somewhat hysterically.

But oh, he had he been oblivious. He had been carefully intent on being just as oblivious as necessary right from the start.

He blinked a few times, slowly.

Blinking helped, a moment of darkness to clear his head, bringing everything back to a normal pace, into a normal light. 

 

When Enjolras looked up again Jehan was looking back at him with an expression he had a hard time pining down, sad maybe, but actually more sorry than that. It might have been pitiful.

  
“Jehan, we didn’t expect your visit,” Enjolras eventually said and was eternally grateful his voice didn’t quiver. “Any of you, actually,” he added and the small smile Jehan gave him in response didn’t take away any of the worry displayed on their face.

“We gathered that under the current circumstances there was no time to delay this coversation any longer than necessary. There's a lot more to it but maybe, to keep things short, let us just that we want the same thing and we can help each other so I am going to tell you everything I know.”

Enjolras and tried to find insincerity in their voice. Even though he didn't know what exactly it was Jehan knew, he was certain it was by far more than they did. And why would they be willing to share such knowledge? Just like that? Not very likely.

“Everything?”

Jehan didn’t hesitate a second. “Everything.”

 

“Right,” Enjolras said. Even if he wasn't going to take that for granted, some answers would still be better than nothing at all. He respected Jehan and everything they had done for his team. He even _liked_ Jehan but years and years in a business like there's had taught Enjolras to be cautious no matter what. It was bad enough he was more and more straying away from that notion when it came to some other things. Things he was going to think about ... later.

 

Enjolras turned around sharply to knock at the bathroom door and take a deep breath facing away from everyone – someone – else in the room.

He still had to smile as Courfeyrac opened the door with his hair looking like someone had gotten to close with a vacuum cleaner even though that didn’t actually look that much different than usually.

“Sorry,” he started but the architect took one look at the now seven people behind Enjolras in the room and waved him off.

“No, no, I get it. No one wants to tell the whole thing twice.”

Enjolras reckoned he could have at least tried to pretend to care a little bit more but then, given the current circumstances, he probably couldn’t really expect that.

“Ferre?”

Combeferre hadn’t follow behind Courfeyrac, still leaning against the sink and just staring ahead with a slightly dazed expression until he snapped out of it at the sound of Enjorlas’s voice.

“What? Oh yes, sorry. I’m coming. ”

Bahorel opened his mouth but Feuilly was faster. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

The other man crossed his arms in front of his chest and pretended to sulk.

While ten people tried to find a place to sit in admittedly quite small hotel room Enjolras willed his brain to focus on the topic at hand. When his eyes briefly met Grantaire’s before he forced himself to look away he still couldn’t help clenching his teeth almost painfully.

Later, he told himself, that’s something to deal with later, while something in the back of his mind treacherously whispered _never, never, never_.

  
“Alright,” Enjolras started as everyone was ready to pay attention, addressing Jehan. “I suppose you already know what happened in Frankfurt?”

  
“Grantaire told me.”

“Of course.”

“I didn’t ask them to come here,” Grantaire cut in and Enjolras did his best to not flinch at the tone of his voice that tried to sound sharp but was so obviously laced with exhaustion that it messed up all of Enjolras well placed emotions all over again.

 _Breathe_ , he told himself, and concentrate on Jehan.

“Then why are you-”

He was interrupted before he could finish the question.

 

“I did,” Feuilly said.

 

Enjolras’s head snapped to the point man. “What?”

“You know that we basically had next to information and sooner or later it would have come down to asking Jehan for help because they’re literally the only one except Patron-Minette who might actually have more than some vague idea who these people are they’re working for. And believe me, it was not a walk in the park to get a hold of them.”

“We have an idea,” ENjolras insited but Feuilly rolled his eyes.

“We have a name, Enjolras, that’s -”

“Okay, wait” Combeferre interrupted Feuilly softly but decided. “I am starting to get confused here and I’m sure I am not the only one so could we please start from the beginning and go from there?”

 

Affirmative murmur went through the room.

 

“Right, good point,” Courfeyrac nodded with a smile. Combeferre smiled back at him. Bossuet cleared his throat and the architect continued, “So I haven’t really told Marius what went wrong last week because I didn’t want to make any assumptions and Enjolras did the same. And I'm pretty sure R didn't tell Ferre, am I right?”

“Didn’t want to tell everything twice,” Grantaire murmured. Combeferre nodded understandingly, face serious again.

  
“Right, so let’s start with that. Everything went quite well, not to brag but it could have worked amazingly and it would have worked amazingly but…,” Courfeyrac trailed off, carefully looking over at Enjolras.

“It was my fault,” he said before the architect could continue.

One would have been able to hear a needle drop in the following silence.

 

“I let my emotions interfere with my actions so yes, it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t," Grantaire cut in. Enjolras kept his eyes fixed on Courfeyrac, clinging to the open support and softness of his expression as the architect returned his gaze steadily. “I was distracting Babet as Claquesous, Enjolras and Courfeyrac were listening over the coms. I let him talk but I hadn’t thought about the possibility that he would mention Montparnasse and his former involvement with Patron-Minette.”

“Montparnasse and his former _what_?” Feuilly repeated disbelievingly and Bahorel, Bossuet and Cosette exchanged surprised looks. Even Jehan seemed a little bit taken aback.

  
“They didn’t know?” Cosette asked and Grantaire sighed heavily.

  
“No, I figured out they didn’t when I told them about the time I was working undercover. And I didn’t tell them because I respected his privacy,” he practically spit out the last words.

  
“Jesus Christ.” Feuilly shook his head incredulously. “Alright, I did  _not_ expect that. Parnasse’s always been a bit of a shady person but _that_? I mean of course I did some digging on him back then but yeah, I suppose it’s not a surprise nothing came up. God, I never even thought about why he wasn’t talking about himself.”

“Well,” Combeferre said matter-of-factly. “Montparnasse isn’t the most talkative person.”

“I concur,” Grantaire muttered sarcastically. “Anyway, it was quite of a shock, as one could have been expected, so, to make it quick, I had to drop my act so Babet realized what was going on and the everything basically crashed under our feet but we managed to fight off the projections for long enough and then abbreviated the whole thing by jumping out of the window.”

“Well damn,” Bossuet concluded. The first real smile ghosted over Grantaire’s face.

Enjolras hadn’t realized he had turned back to look at him and quickly averted his eyes to a much safer point on the wall and then to Jehan as they spoke up. “Montparnasse never was a spy for Patron-Minette when he was working with you.”

“You mean that after what – years of working for them he simply decided, ‘oh well, you know, I kind of have enough of being the bad guy’?” Courfeyrac asked flippantly and Enjolras could hear Grantaire trying to suppress a huff. He was probably rolling his eyes.

Jehan’s expression didn’t change as they calmly replied, “After several years of being their _leader_ that was supposedly exactly what happened.”

“Jesus. _Christ,_ ” Feuilly repeated again, with more emphasis.

Enjolras comprehending the actual words he was hearing felt like he was going to be sick.

Surprisingly Jehan seemed to know what was going on in his head because their expression turned softer while at the same time their voice stayed firm. “You can judge Montparnasse for what he did in the past if you want to, I don’t pretend to understand why he did it, but you don’t know anything about it except for what someone else told you. I am not telling you what to think, I am only saying that for you all he ever was, was a brilliant forger who did nothing to earn your mistrust for the time he was working with you.”

  
The silence made it clear that no one seemed to feel the need to say anything to protest that.

  
Enjolras simply shoved yet another bunch of uncomfortable thoughts into the drawer in his brain labelled ‘stuff to deal with later’.

And how he was looking forward to that.

“Alright. Parnasse, former leader of Patron-Minette, got it,” Enjolras said probably far more harshly than necessary. “Great we clarified that but I suppose that’s not what you really wanted to talk about?”

From the corner of his eye he saw Feuilly frown and he most likely wasn’t the only one. A glance at Courfeyrac and Combeferre confirmed the suspicion.

 

Enjolras ignored it.

Why break a good run, right?

 

“You’re right,” Jehan said. The others had gotten astonishingly quiet as if everyone realized the whole thing would be easier without interruptions every minute. Enjolras was silently grateful. Gather all possible information first, evaluate said information later. He could do that.

  
“How much is it you already know about the people Patron-Minette is working for?”

  
Enjolras took a deep breath and focused on Jehan again. “Patron-Minette is an executive force, they are a bunch of thieves, good ones but international politics isn’t their style so there has to be someone much more powerful and ambitious behind it, and I don’t mean that in a good way. We don’t know what information they extract exactly but from the marks it’s obvious that there’s a difference between those jobs that result in money and those that result in influence. We managed to extract an information from Babet last week in Frankfurt concerning the identity of who he was in contact with. But in the end it was a name that has to yet lead us to more information which appears to be…”

“Impossible,” Jehan finished the second Enjolras hesitated.

He nodded reluctantly. “It appears so. The name Thénardier isn’t a common one but Feuilly hasn’t been able to find even the slightest trace of any-”

  
“ _Hold on._ ”

 

Enjolras tried not to flinch when Grantaire interrupted him, harshly and really, he was supposed to be used to that, but when he glanced up the other man wasn’t looking at him but Jehan.

“ _Thénardier?_ Did you know that?”

Something incredibly cold lightened up in Jehan’s usually so warm brown eyes for just a moment that made Enjolras immediately remember the amount of respect he had for them.

It was easy to forget with all the bright, terrible fashion choices and soft voice and fragile appearance but if he would actually be a cautious person, like he tried convincing himself to be, he probably should be more terrified than relieved by the fact that the most powerful person in their business willingly chose to confide in them.

  
“Do you really think me capable of doing that to you?” they asked calmly and Grantaire held their gaze determinedly.

Enjolras couldn’t seem to look away from the intensity of those blue-green eyes that he had been missing from the moment Grantaire had walked through the door. He still looked tired and upset and – the realization hit like just another punch, just as unsuspected, just as breathtaking – absolutely beautiful.

  
Grantaire eventually looked away and to the ground, shaking his head.

  
Enjolras suddenly felt like he was intruding on something he wasn’t supposed to and shifted to look at Courfeyrac and Combeferre. The architect regarded him with a raised eyebrow. ‘What’s going on?’ he mouthed and Enjolras shrugged just a little bit.

 

Later.

 _Really?,_ his brain mocked.

 

Jehan cleared their throat. “Why don’t I just tell you what we know, then we can all have the night to think about it and talk about we’re going to do tomorrow?”

Enjolras supposed it was a good plan, it had gotten much later than expected. A look out of the window already showed how dark it had gotten outside. Thinking was also good. Probably.

“I’m going to look what rooms they got left for us,” Bossuet announced and was about to stand up but Cosette gently pushed him down again. “No, I’ll do it. You stay here.” Enjolras could have sworn she was glancing at Grantaire and was sure when Bossuet followed her gaze, then nodded.

Cosette quickly left the room confirming Enjolras suspicion that at least she knew everything that was going on.

Everyone’s eyes followed her as she slipped out of the room.

The silence, tense and expectant, didn’t last long.

Jehan ran a hand through their hair and sighed softly.

“Quite alright then…”

 

***


	17. Part III. Enjolras III/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What... What's that? Another chapter? On the same day? Yes, that's exactly what this is. Enjoy! ♥

 

III/VII

 

***

 

 

“I have been looking for the Thénardiers for years,” Jehan started with an almost absent expression on their face. “About eight years precisely, four years when I eventually got a name. Before that but I had my suspicions about the part Patron-Minette had in the whole matter most likely because of the same reasons you did, through observation and making the right conclusions.

But back then they were much more – let’s call it organized or established in their ways for that matter. If you had tried to extract any kind of information back then you would have hardly been able to get out of it alive. I am not saying this to denunciate you or your skills, it’s actually incredible that you even got onto them, it’s simply the truth. The only person with the information you would have wanted - ”

 

“Which would have been Montparnasse,” Courfeyrac added still with disbelief evident in his voice and Jehan nodded.

  
“Which would have been Montparnasse, exactly. I’ve seen his defence mechanisms. Conscious or not. You would have been shred into pieces. Anybody would have been. So I looked for another way to get closer to them, I had information on at least some of their locations from where they supposedly operated because I was providing them with Somnacin. I’m a neutral party in our business – _supposedly_ , as well. It wasn’t easy but eventually the team I had build up by then managed to find a place where Montparnasse was staying more frequently in between operations, a small inn in Montfermeill.

So we got Grantaire to stay there and, R said he told you already, get information from the inside, earn their trust, et cetera. In the end…well,” Jehan sighed heavily, “It didn’t go as planned.”

 _“I didn’t get myself almost killed to jump right back into that bloody mess,”_ Grantaire’s voice sounded in Enjolras mind as he remembered that evening in Vienna. There was a constricting feeling rising in his chest and he clenched his jaw in another attempt to ignore it.

“Of course it didn’t,” Grantaire murmured but it sounded more tired than cutting. “Are we honestly pretending to be surprised?”

Jehan didn’t respond. “It was my fault. At that point I was not ... aware of the significance that said inn was owned by one Madame and Monsieur _Thénardier._ ”

Enjolras could practically feel how almost everyone in the room collectively breathed in sharply.

Jehan, for a moment, seemed like they were about to stop in their explanation, an expression of guilt flashing over their face, but then they did continue, curled hair falling softly in their face. “Of course I didn’t know what happened at first, maybe I should have been trying to figure it out then, be more observant, I don’t know, but R was in the hospital. Half dead. He would have been dead if Bossuet hadn’t found him bleeding out in an alley like –“

_“Jehan.”_

Jehan stopped mid-sentence at Grantaire’s interruption.

Grantaire's voice was soft but Enjolras could see the tension in his whole body.

He could feel his own heart rate speed up at the sudden image of exactly that.

 

Grantaire, shot, in the dark bleeding onto the cobblestone in a small alley where it had been more than possible that no one would have found him.

 

Enjolras's heart and as well as other insides protested at the thought and as he tried to concentrate on Jehan who started speaking again, still he knew that he most likely wouldn’t get to sleep at all that night.

“R had informed me before that he was supposed to work as a spy for Patron-Minette but now that _their_ spy had turned out to _be_ a spy himself we didn’t think they would go through with the plan. I had expected them to maybe lie low for a while, don’t attract any attention. What _no one_ could have expected was that we got back to an organisation that was tearing itself to pieces, like rats leaving a sinking ship.

And, imagine my surprise when the only thing that the one person we got hold of was willing to say, was that their leader had let them all down to join _you._

Because there was nothing left of Patron-Minette and therefore no link to who they were working for, I got into contact with the only person I knew for certain had knowledge about them.”

  
“Which would have been Parnasse. _Again_ ,” Courfeyrac deadpanned.

  
“What did he tell you?” Feuilly asked more interested than anything else. Combeferre stayed silent with a thoughtful expression on his face.

  
Jehan shrugged. “Their name first and foremost. Also People he knew who were associated with them, people they had under their control, things like that.”

“What did he want in return?” Enjolras heard himself asking.

Jehan regarded him with a long look from light brown eyes before they replied, “Montparnasse is an opportunist. In a way. I suppose he simply knew that he wouldn’t be able to go back and a lot of people were going to be after his head. I guess no one understands the whole picture when it comes to him, I certainly don’t pretend to.

He didn’t ask for anything in return, he gave me as much information as he wanted to and all of it turned out to the truth. He didn’t know where the Thenardiers had disappeared to because of course that’s what they did after the whole turmoil and we were too late to keep them and not able to track them. We kept looking the whole time while we were busy taking care of the other people Montparnasse had told me about, we had lots of information on others but still not a lot more on the Thénardiers except that we knew we were weakening them but not more.

It got obvious that it wasn’t enough when we got the news that Patron-Minette was active again.”

  
“I was trying to contact you,” Grantaire said quietly. “It was like you’ve had fallen off the face of the earth, not even Joly could reach any of you.”

“I know.” The way Jehan said the words it sounded more like an apology. “We had to. It was one of Montparnasse’s conditions. He had decided to withhold a very significant information _but_ ,” they emphasized before anyone could raise their voice to interrupt, “he had his reason for said decision. He didn’t do it for himself but only to protect those who are important to him.

Apparently two of Thenardier’s children left in the chaos after Patron-Minette was destroyed and have been on the run ever since.”

A heavy silence settled in the room.

“Children?” Courfeyrac eventually broke the silence with a whisper as horrified as Enjolras felt. Children. Enjolras could imagine what it took for a child to leave behind their parents. How much it took. For a moment it didn't felt like it had been over ten years ago since he had done it. 

  
“The oldest daughter and her younger brother. She was sixteen back then, he was eight," Jehan said softly. "Montparnasse was the only one who knew where they first went. Now that Patron-Minette is active again and the Thénardiers have a way to get back their power as well as their influence he thought I would be more helpfull at keeping them safe if I knew. We spent the last weeks trying to find them but Montparnasse insisted we went off the grip.”

“Did you?” The words felt heavy on Enjolras tongue. “Find them?”

“Yes, we did. But, understandably, they’ve been reluctant to cooperate until, well, until they heard what you’ve done.”

Enjolras stared at Jehan in a mixture of surprise and shock. He knew that the other must have felt similar because he was the first one to recover enough to respond. “You want us to talk to them. So they will tell us how to get to their parents.” Who they have been hiding from for years. Who make them so terrified that they have been hiding for years, he didn't say.

“They don’t trust me,” Jehan said. “I am too much like their parents, am I not?" They didn't sound bitter. They sounded like they understood and Enjolras felt a sudden admiration for Jehan that was much different from the usual respect he gave to them.

"I am someone who sits in the back and observes and orders. I’m supposed to be neutral, right? They must wonder how can I possibly keep them safe. We found them in a place where they thought no one would find them, I understand their caution.

But _you_ , everyone knows what your team stand for, what you do, how good you are at it. I am sure if someone is able to convince them to cooperate, help us as well if only a little bit so we can make _progress,_ than it is you.”

“And if not than you might at least be able to help protect two innocent people who didn’t deserve what they went through,” Cosette said quietly. There was a distant despondent edge in her voice.

Enjolras hadn't noticed that she had come back into the room.

His head was so full of whirling thoughts, everything was trying to click into place and fit and just generally _make sense_ , he was feeling sick again but one thing he knew for sure. That even after he would have gotten it all into some sort of order, they wouldn’t refuse what Jehan was asking of them.

  
Enjolras looked into the faces of his friends and saw his thoughts reflected in Feuilly, Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s expression.

His gaze flickered over to Grantaire whose eyes were hidden by a mob of black curls as he was looking at the ground, bottom lip caught between his teeth and Enjolras said nothing.

  
“I think that’s for the best,” Jehan said, “If we stop here for today. What is most important has been said and it’s late. We can talk tomorrow.”

  
Enjolras couldn’t find it in him to disagree. Everyone else seemed to feel the same because no one protested.

  
Cosette was starting to hand out key cards so they could all settle into their respected hotel rooms for the night. Enjolras didn’t move until Combeferre kept holding onto Courfeyrac’s hand even as the architect was about to stand up.

Grantaire huffed, a sound surprisingly close to a laugh. “Well, I’m certainly not going to stay for _that._ ”

Enjolras could have sworn Courfeyrac was blushing and at any other point in time he would have been incredibly surprised by that notion, but right then he didn’t dwell on it further.

He scrambled to his feet with all the amount of grace he could muster in that situation what probably wasn’t that much but it wasn’t like he particularly cared.

Cosette wordlessly handed him a room card as he reached for his backpack that he had dropped earlier and quickly followed Grantaire out of the room not looking back once.

 

The other man hadn’t gotten too far and Enjolras reached for his wrist without thinking.

Grantaire stopped. Enjolras could see the way his shoulders tensed before he turned around slowly, his eyes not immediately looking up to meet Enjolras’s but lingering on the fingers wrapped around his wrist. Enjolras didn’t let go.

Grantaire looked up and Enjolras swallowed around the lump that was stuck in his throat.

“Can we talk?” he asked and was glad that he was able to even get the words out with Grantaire looking at him as an almost believable smirk tugged up the corner of his mouth and he raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a question, chief? Or an order?”

Right, snarky, sarcastic Grantaire was something Enjolras was used to even though his voice lacked the usual sharpness of their banter.

He let go of Grantaire’s wrist and took a step back.

“I would prefer if I don’t have to make it an order.”

The other man regarded him for another long moment, then shrugged nonchalantly and snatched the key card from Enjolras fingers. He was too surprised to stop him by the sudden movement that had Grantaire in such close proximity of his if only for the blink of an eye.

They walked down the hall in silence. Enjolras’s mind was surprisingly silent as well.

Grantaire opened a room at the very far end of the hallway and Enjolras risked a look back before he followed the other man inside. The others had gathered in front of the other room, Feuilly and Bahorel already walking in the opposite direction.

Jehan was sitting in their wheelchair and Enjolras met their gaze for a brief moment before he followed Grantaire into the hotel room. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been something like pity in Jehan's expression. It was hard to tell from the distance.  
  
He closed the door behind him as Grantaire chucked the key card onto a small table in the room, then he turned around, arms crossed in front defensively.

  
“Alright, you can shout at me now. Isn’t that what you were waiting for?” he asked, the defensiveness of his posture nowhere near the one of his posture, with an immeasurable tiredness and resignation in his voice.

  
And Enjolras could have sworn to hear his own heart break a little at.

And – if he was being honest with himself and it felt like that was long overdue – not only a little.

  
Enjolras was good with words. A lot of people, himself included, would probably not hesitate to say he was great with words. He knew which ones to use and when and maybe most importantly how. Words were a safety net as well as a springboard, an anchor as well as an opportunity, always close by, just within reach whenever wanted, whenever needed.

  
Only that Grantaire had always been able to make Enjolras forget every single one of them.

 

He crossed the room and the distance between them with three long steps, never once breaking eye contact and cupped Grantaire’s face in his hands, pulling him closer, bringing their lips together in a kiss, determined and helpless at once, that was enough to make everything else seem unimportant.

And when Grantaire immediately, without any hesitation or resistance melted into Enjolras’s touch, it was.

 _‘I think I am in love with you,’_ he thought.

And Grantaire stole the words from his tongue when he kissed Enjolras back with the same harsh desparation of all things uncertain.

 

***


	18. Part III. Enjolras IV/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So where I am it’s still Christmas, so… happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates today (and the next days)! I wish you all a lovely time. (And everyone who doesn’t – I wish you just an equally lovely time!) So take me publishing this today as a .. well, angsty little present? Or something like that. Anyway, thank you all for sticking with me even though it always takes some time to update, you’re all amazing. ❤  
> I hope you all enjoy the chapter! (There is so much forshadowing in this one, idek.)

 

IV/VII

 

***

 

It was in the middle of the night when Enjolras woke up.

The only light shone softly through the curtains from the streetlights below casting the room in a quiet array of shadows.

He woke up to half-lit darkness and an empty bed feeling like he hadn’t slept at all and could have happily slept on four hours. Disappointment added to the heaviness of his exhausted body and mind until he averted his eyes from the window curtains and shifted on the bed to turn around only to find Grantaire sitting on the very edge of the bed.

Enjolras couldn’t see the other man’s face or anything else except for the mess of black curls and the long expanse of his back. He traced the swirling lines of the tattoos with his eyes resisting the urge to reach out and touch.

The disappointment and unsettling feeling momentarily forgotten he resorted to looking instead.

Now, he was probably supposed to freak out what with everything going on, someone he considered a friend turning out to be the former leader of an extremely powerful crime ring, Enjolras’s team on the verge of finally getting closer to the incredibly influential bosses of said crime ring as well as the fact that their team was supported by one of the most powerful people in their business.

But all of that felt easy to handle in comparison to the realization that he had fallen for a beautiful, talented, infuriating man who could take his breath, his heart, his words away with a single look. And who was currently sitting just close enough to touch.

  
He looked at the other man’s hair that was almost getting long enough to be pulled into a ponytail, curling at the base of his neck. Had someone told Enjolras that this moment would happen like this  two years ago he probably would have scoffed and called them delusional.

But maybe, if he had taken a moment to consider, a moment to step back from everything else raging on around him, maybe he would have realized earlier that it all had been amounting to this in the end, right this moment, right from the start.

  
And deep down he was terrified.

  
The thought of something so inevitable left Enjolras feeling utterly defenceless. He was terrified, _helpless._

And yet. He would be lying if he said he hated the feeling.

  
In the middle of the night he lay awake in an uncomfortable hotel bed, mattress hard, blanket too short with all his doubts and all his expectations silenced by the single thought that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

  
“Hey,” he said, voice unfamiliar after sleeping, softly. He wondered if one, any word was able to show all of the emotions that were stuck somewhere on the way between his heart and his lips.

Grantaire startled as Enjorlas spoke up, muscles in his back tensing momentarily before he relaxed again. He turned his head to look at Enjolras over his shoulder.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Enjolras could hardly see his eyes in the half-darkness of the room but it was enough to hear that there was something off in the other man’s tone.

Enjolras sat up and slid closer to Grantaire to sling an arm around his torso, resting his head carefully on the other man’s shoulder.

Grantaire tensed for a second but after a few heartbeats that Enjolras could feel under his skin he sighed quietly and leaned back into the embrace but Enjolras didn’t overlook how Grantaire’s hands were still clenched into fists.

“What’s wrong?” Enjolras asked quietly into the space between Grantaire’s neck and shoulder.

Grantaire shrugged half-heartedly trying carefully not to dislodge Enjolras position. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Enjolras huffed. “That’s not what I asked.”

Grantaire didn’t answer immediately. Enjolras watched the emotions flickering over the profile of the other man’s face, watching his eyes that didn’t look back but into the distance with worry and, Enjolras noticed with a sinking feeling, sadness.

He leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on Grantaire’s chin and tilted his head towards him. Blue-green focused on his in the darkness and Enjolras simply closed the space between them to place a soft, lingering kiss on Grantaire’s lips.

He realized in the back of his mind that when Grantaire kissed him back, equally gentle, equally tentative, that it wasn’t like any other kisses they had shared before. There was no rush, no definite goal in mind, no heat, just an all-consuming warmth filling Enjolras softly from the inside, drowning out anything else.

  
He parted his lips with a quiet sigh and used the opportunity too deepen the kiss but Grantaire pulled away slightly. Enjolras only realized he had closed his eyes when he opened them again and looked into the other man’s face, so close to his own.

“I’m worried,” Grantaire said almost too quiet for Enjolras to understand.

And he was right, there were a million things to be worried about and yet, as surprised as he was at the thought, Enjolras couldn’t seem to find himself able to care about any of them right then.

He rested a hand on the other man’s chin. “Don’t be.” He looked at Grantaire firmly, keeping his hand in place to stop him from looking away. “Not now. There will be plenty of time left for that tomorrow.”

A fracture of a smile ghosted over Grantaire’s face and it made Enjolras’s heart ache.

It would have been easy, right then, to say the words lying on the tip of his tongue. Just like that.

“Are you telling me to live the moment?” Grantaire asked too seriously.

Enjolras kept their gazes firmly locked. “And what if I am?” He hadn’t intended to whisper but for some reason he couldn’t speak louder, his words already feeling like they were slipping out of his reach again. Maybe it was wiser to get closer to the silence but at the same time it felt like that silence was only a substitute for the something much more tangible, the unspoken words that filled it, all of them in Enjolras’s head.

“That would be very unlike you, wouldn’t it?”

And wasn’t he right about that?

Enjolras swallowed and in the end he was the first one to avert his eyes.

“Go back to sleep R.”

And neither of them said anything else. Grantaire kept sitting on the edge of the bed until Enjolras fell back into sleep.

 

***

 

The second time Enjolras woke up it was already dawning.

The second time he woke up he was alone and even opening his eyes, looking around in the room and listening for some sort of sound didn’t change anything about that.

And he didn’t like it.

He didn’t _not_ like it for the seemingly obvious reasons though, the waking up alone in a bed that had been occupied by two the moment he had closed his eyes.

 

He didn’t like it because something felt decidedly … _wrong_.

 

Usually Enjolras tried to avoid caring about feeling like this, intuitions more than feelings actually, because those were never particularly founded.

But he was alone, more importantly Grantaire wasn’t _there,_ so he had no one but himself to talk himself out of it and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been doing all sorts of unusual things lately, so… well. He didn't feel exactly persuading.

For formerly being so terrified of not having control over his actions by logically thinking everything through, it sure didn’t feel so terrible. Maybe it even was something he might be able to get used to.

It was truning out  to be more disastrous to fight his instincts than listening to them for once in a while.

 

And it had only taking him a couple of weeks of being with Grantaire to realize that.He might even be on his way to accept it as well.

  
Enjolras sighed, for no particular reason except life, and swung his legs off the bed, the chilly air jolting him awake.

He pulled on his jeans that lay somewhere at the foot of the bed on the floor, his fingers grazing the edge of the hourglass in his pocket without taking it out.

He was quite aware of being awake. And in reality.

After a quick moment of contemplation he reached for Grantaire’s navy blue hoody on the floor and gathered enough shreds of dignity to not press his face into the fabric.

The fact that Grantaire had left it there when it was certainly not warm enough to walk around in a t-shirt that erarly in the morning only confirmed Enjolras’s feeling that something wasn’t alright.

  
He found socks and shoes eventually and stepped out into the deserted hallway.

He looked up and down the floor.

 

Alright.

He was a _spy_ , for god's sake he could figure this one out.

 

So if their whole team was supposed to meet Enjolras would have been woken up as well, so Grantaire hadn’t left because of that.

He suddenly felt guilty for not pushing the topic further when Grantaire had told him that he was worried earlier the night.

Maybe he wanted to talk to someone.

Enjolras couldn’t blame him.

There was so much to worry about. Certainly for Grantaire.

God, the last time he had anything to do with those Thenardier people he had almost died.

Enjolras felt sick at the thought.

And he probably wouldn’t want to talk to Enjolras because wasn’t he the one pushing him back into that whole mess? No wonder he had been reluctant. And Enjolras had simply brushed it off.

So it was most likely Grantaire had gone to either Jehan or Bossuet who had to share a room since Cosette was with Marius and Bahorel with Feuilly.

Enjolras was pretty sure Grantaire was closer to Bossuet. It was like that in the man’s presence Grantaire became more carefree and open, there was a change in his whole demeanour, like he was simply being. Quite like this Enjolras had only ever seen him with Joly as well and he shoved away the guilt that dwelled up inside him again because he had actually never really thought about it like that.

Hell, he didn’t even really know what Grantaire had been doing before he had joined their team, obviously he hadn’t, let alone of the live he had been living.

Grantaire with Jehan was different. Still affectionate and certainly caring but there was an omnipresent underlying tension there.

Maybe because their history was widely based on Grantaire risking his life for Jehan’s purposes no matter how much they cared about protecting him.

Enjolras looked left, down the hallway along the rows of closed hotel room doors, looked right to the end of the hall at the elevator.

He frowned.

And turned right.

If Grantaire was wanting to talk to Jehan – and given their current situation Enjolras was sure that one needed Jehan’s reassurance on the subject more than all of Bossuet’s empathy – they wouldn’t do it in a room with someone else, Grantaire was too secretive about his feelings, his past, all of himself really, for that.

 

And no one would expect Jehan in a wheelchair to…

 

Enjolras quietly opened the emergency door on the left side of the elevator. It wasn’t locked. He didn’t make a sound as he pushed down the handle, opened it just a crack. He kept his breath shallow, heart beating fast in his chest.

“It will work out R,” Jehan said in a hushed whisper, reassuring but Enjorlas could hear the tension in their voice.

“I know,” Grantaire answered.

His voice send a shiver down Enjolras’s spine. It sounded cold, detached and for a moment Enjolras, even though he _knew_ Grantaire’s voice - in his sleep -, irrationally wondered if it was really Grantaire speaking.

Of course it was. But everything about his tone, his voice just felt so, _so_ wrong.

  
Enjolras was tempted to pull out his hour glass, just in case, just to be sure but then, suddenly, the silence was broken by a sob and every other thought in Enjolras’s mind was drowned out by that broken sound of desperation when he realized it was Grantaire, Grantaire, who else and yet, he was shocked.

He didn’t even realize his fingers tighten around the handle that his knuckled turned white.

“I don’t want to Jehan, I don’t…”

“Shhh,” Jehan’s said softly, their voice slightly muffled. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The sadness of their voice was nothing in comparison to other sounds, the sounds coming from Grantaire.

 

Enjolras was sure he would never be able to forget that sound.

  
He was frozen on spot, caught in between wanting to run, as far, as fast as possible and at the same time wanting to rip open that door and he stayed. He stayed right where he was. Again. He couldn’t move.

It was like a déjà-vu like seeing Grantaire’s face, tired, endlessly sad, only a hundred times worse.

  
“Shh,” Jehan said, “Shh.” And then, “You don’t have to R, you don’t have to do it. We can find another way.”

“No.” And just like that, just as sudden Grantaire’s voice was hard again, and somber.

Enjolras started trembling.

“R, we can -,” Jehan stared but Grantaire cut them off unrelentingly.

“There is one way. One other way. Here and now.”

Enjolras could only hear his own breath for a moment. 

“You wouldn’t,” Jehan whispered.

“I would. If there wasn’t another way, I would. Without hesitation.”

The silence was creeping into Enjolras’s veins like ice water. He was sure his heartbeat had to sound like church bells in the silence.

“Maybe,” Jehan said and their voice despite being calm quivered slighty, “that is a conversation for another day.”

“There isn’t anything I would add to such a conversation Jehan.” Grantaire’s tone was unwavering. Definite.

“If you say so,” jehan replied softly and the unmistakable contrast to Grantaire’s former declaration marked the end of the conversation.

 

Like in trance Enjolras stepped back and closed the door just as quietly as he had opened it. He didn’t really feel his feet taking step after step quickly back into the hotel room.

He had run away from home and started his new life, his real life with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, with Les Amis.

He had never doubted that what they were doing was the right thing.

He still didn’t doubt that.

But for once there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that asked if maybe, maybe there were things worth taking back just one step.

 

***


	19. Part III. Enjolras V/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m very sorry, my knowledge of the inside of private jets is limited to what I remember from watching Criminal Minds.  
> Enjoy the chapter! ♥

 

V/VII

 

***

 

Enjolras wanted to talk to Grantaire, he really did.

He simply had no idea what to say.

The other man had come back into their room soon after Enjolras.

He hadn’t exactly pretended to sleep after he had made his way back without really realizing, like pulled by invisible strings. He hadn’t made it know he was awake either.

He was sure Grantaire had noticed.

He hadn’t said a word.

Enjolras didn’t know if he should be glad about it or not.

 

A few hours later they were woken up by Feuilly knocking on their door and the team had unanimously decided to go with Jehan. Grantaire had nodded, not a word, not a look at Enjolras or anyone else.

 

For priding himself in having a way with words Enjolras sure felt like he had hit a brick wall even if he did _want_ to talk, more than anything. But how was he supposed to know where to start, what was most important when there was so much left to say?

 

“You’re worried.”

 

Enjolras startled.

He hadn’t even realized that Combeferre had approached him let alone sat down in the seat next to him.

 

They were back in Jehan’s private plane. Enjolras remembered the last time, two years ago, only too vividly.

Most of them were sleeping in their seats since probably no one had gotten a lot of sleep the night before. Cosette’s head was resting on Marius’ shoulder. Courfeyrac’s face was pressed against a window where he was snoring quietly. Feuilly was nowhere to be seen so he was most likely with Bahorel in the cockpit. Even Jehan’s head had eventually fallen to the side while they had been reading what looked like an at least hundred year old book.

If Enjolras leaned forward he would have been able to see Grantaire and Bossuet through the gap in the seats on the other side of the plane talking in hushed whisper. He was silently grateful for Bossuet. Grantaire was at least smiling even though he still seemed tense.

Enjolras felt terrible.

Combeferre’s hands were folded in his lap. He looked relaxed, benign, but Enjolras knew he was just as cornered as if Courfeyrac had shoved him into a bathroom again.

He sighed resigning himself to his fate. “Yes, yes I’m worried.”

“About what we’re doing?”

“No. No, not that.”

Combeferre hummed in patient agreement like an overly fond grandfather and Enjolras leaned back in his seat trying to relax his strained muscles.

“I know we’re doing the right thing, helping these children.”

Combeferre raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think that after all they went through there’d be much of a childhood left for anyone?”

Enjolras paused. A moment of thinking back to his eighteen-year old self was enough for him to swallow hard.

“Yeah. I suppose you’re right about that. But no matter what, we’re helping them. Because it’s the right thing. It’s what we do, isn’t it? The right thing?”

A small crease appeared on Combeferre’s forehead. “Do you doubt that?”

“No,” Enjolras answered honestly, “I don’t.”

Combeferre hummed again.

Enjolras bit down onto his lip. “It’s Grantaire.”

“Shocking,” Combeferre said dryly.

When Enjolras was about to return something that would have probably come out sulky and very likely immature he saw that the other man was smiling slightly.

Enjolras stared at him in disbelief, then leaned towards him and punched his shoulder.

Combeferre ducked his head and chuckled.

Enjolras knew he was blushing, he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, but couldn’t help but join his friend’s laughter and just a few seconds later they were both gasping for air as they tried to stop giggling like teenagers.

 

For a moment it felt like a weight was dropping from Enjolras’s chest.

 

Combeferre’s shoulders were shaking as he was silently laughing and Enjolras tried to be as quiet as possible to not wake anyone up but he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know how long they sat like this, until his side ached and there were tears in his eyes.

Eventually Combeferre leaned back, still chuckling slightly and took off his glasses to clean them with the sleeve of his pullover.

The motion reminded Enjolras of movie nights and too much chocolate when they had been twelve, mostly carefree, Courfeyrac with his feet tucked under Enjolras’s legs, his head resting in Combeferre’s lap.

 

Enjolras smiled, hit by a sudden wave of wistful nostalgia.

“You remember the last time we were in this thing?” he asked gesturing at the entirety of the plane and Combeferre nodded with half of a smile still playing around his lips.

“Of course. You were trying to throw Grantaire out of the window with just that scowl of yours.”

Enjolras let out a laugh, then stared at the back of the seat in front of him, not meeting his friend’s eyes.

“Ferre?”

“Yes?”

“Did I hate him? Back then?”

Combeferre didn’t reply immediately but when he did his voice was gentle. “I don’t think you did. To be honest, I don’t think you’ve ever hated him. He was cocky. Blunt. Brilliant, admittedly but fairly irritating I suppose.”

Enjolras huffed. “Did that change?”

“No,” Combeferre simply said, “but you learned to appreciate it, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I think you’re right.”

“You _think_?” Combeferre’s tone wasn’t sarcastic or teasing, simply encouraging Enjolras to be honest. It wasn’t much about being honest with Combeferre but himself.

“No, I know,” he said firmly and Combeferre nodded again.

They didn’t say anything for a few moments, Combeferre waited patiently until Enjolras gathered enough courage to continue with what was actually the weight on his mind.

“I overheard Grantaire and Jehan talking. I didn’t mean… no, I suppose I did mean to listen. He told me he was worried and I didn’t ask him what was wrong. I didn’t want to talk about it, to be honest, I was… well, it doesn’t matter. When I woke up he had left and I felt guilty for not talking to him and so I went after him and he was talking to Jehan. They didn’t hear me. At least I don’t think they did, they wouldn’t have kept talking if they did. And Grantaire, he was – ”

At this point Enjolras had to stop, recalling the other man’s voice. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“It’s bad for him, Ferre. He sounded _terrified_. He said he didn’t want do it, getting back into the whole mess, I suppose. I mean it almost killed him the last time, didn’t it? He told me, back then when Parton-Minette found him out, they wanted to kill him. For heaven’s sake, they _shot_ him. And the reason he didn’t die was because the bullet literally missed the main artery by an inch what left him just enough time not to completely bleed out in the street until Bossuet found him.

And Jehan said he didn’t have to do it and then he just… snapped. And that… it was _worse_. He sounded so cold, I don’t… Like it didn’t even matter what he felt. Why would he still be here, Ferre? He can’t want to be here and I don’t blame him. God, I don’t blame him.”

Enjolras ran a hand though his hair, then closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, in complete darkness until he felt the soft pressure of long fingers around his wrists. Combeferre slowly pulled his hands down. His eyes were honey and warmth as he spoke calmly with unwavering firmness.

“Grantaire is here, Enjolras. No matter what he said, he is here now. No matter how scared he is or what he fears. All of us are allowed to be afraid. But he is _here_. With us. With _you_. You know that. Tell me you know that.”

 

 _"I do believe in one thing."_  
_"I believe in you, you idiot."_

 

“I know that,” Enjolras said quietly and wondered if he was ever going to be able to see the truth for what it was from the start instead of wandering around in the darkness for ages.

Combeferre looked at him and after he seemed to find whatever he had been waiting to see let go of Enjolras’s wrists.

“Then it’s you’re decision what to do with that knowledge. But I feel like you already do, don’t you?”

Enjolras didn’t even have to answer.

He wanted to talk to Grantaire. He not only wanted but needed to. He needed Grantaire to know how he felt and he wanted to hear how Grantaire felt for him, again, with no uncertainty, denial or fear left between them.

And he wanted to know him. Better. For real. Every single thing that mattered.

Just that. Just that simple. That was everything that mattered.

  
“Don’t wait too long,” Combeferre said, “there are only so many moments to waste.” And he smiled, a smile that was neither sad nor full of regret, just as smile.

“Thank you.” Enjolras wouldn’t have been able to think of anything more fitting to say.

Combeferre laughed quietly. “Right.” He patted Enjolras knee once, then stood up.

 

“Hey Ferre?”

The other man stopped, raising one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Yes, Enjolras?”

“I’m happy for you.”

Combeferre’s expression softened. He looked at him with a fondness that simply made Enjolras feel like home. “I know.”

He turned around and sat down next to Courfeyrac, took his hand and laced their fingers together. The architect sighed happily, keeping his eyes closed.

Enjolras could still feel the smile on his lips when he leaned forward and through the gap between the seats he could see Grantaire and half of Bossuet’s head on the other side of the plane.

The other man had fallen asleep on Grantaire’s shoulder. The forger was looking out of the window but he seemed to have felt Enjolras eyes on him because he turned slightly to look back at him.

And Grantaire smiled, just a small smile, half crooked and beautiful even though it still didn’t quite reach his eyes Enjolras smiled back nevertheless, vowing that the next time they had the chance to talk in private he was not going to waste it.

 

***

 

U.N.I.T.E.D. S.T.A.T.E.S. O.F. A.M.E.R.I.C.A. – N.E.W. Y.O.R.K. C.I.T.Y.

 

***

 

To be honest, Enjolras had never quite understood the whole hype around New York.

Courfeyrac would have probably hit him with something heavy if he was ever going to admit it out loud with the architect close by.

It was loud. It was shrill and so full of people that Enjolras constantly needed to feel the reassurance of his gun pressing against his side to not freak out. It made him feel more like a criminal on the run than anything else, paranoia and tension making his heart rate speed up.

But well, he supposed America was a place making it easy to feel paranoid.

He didn’t even want to know what strings Jehan pulled – or held in their hands – to get them there without any even minor inconveniences.

It was like wherever Jehan showed up they were followed by a black hole swallowing up every evidence of their existence and everyone near.

 

They stood inside the elevator of a multi-storey building somewhere on the Upper West Side and Enjolras thought that maybe the masses of people did have an advantage. It was easier to disappear in a crowd.

 

Their by then quite large group had split up. Cosette, Marius and Bossuet as well as Combeferre and Courfeyrac had stayed back this time. They didn’t want to show up with too many people at once for it would certainly be intimidating for anyone.

Jehan sat in their wheelchair, hands folded on their lap, shoulders tense.

Bahorel stood at their side, a towering presence that managed to calm even Enjolras a little bit even though Bahorel hadn’t supposed to come with them for protection but simply because “they like me” but for some reason that was even more reassuring.

Feuilly with his skills as a point man was theoretically the most threatening of their team so they were planning on taking off the edge by laying all of his capabilities out in the open from the start.

Grantaire had come with them as well. Enjolras supposed because he already had some kind of connection to the subject even though he didn’t remember much of the Thenardier children having not paid much attention to the inhabitants of the inn not deeming them important back then.

Enjolras himself was supposed to stand up front, be the leader, confident and assuring even though he was on fairly unfamiliar territory with what they were supposed to do.

Usually they didn’t need to persuade someone to take their help simply because they weren’t dealing with… well, with the good people.

 

The elevator made its stop known with a shrill bing-sound and the doors glided open quietly.

 

Jehan purposefully rolled towards a door on the right, then retreated slightly to let Enjolras step in front of the door first.

Before he raised his hand to ring the doorbell though Jehan held him back.

“Expect someone to point a gun at your head,” they warned and Enjolras could hear Feuilly murmur somewhere behind his back, “It’s not like we’re not used to it.”

Enjolras looked over his shoulder at Grantaire expecting him to look tense or detached but found him looking back with a smile that was only betrayed by a sadness laced in between shades of blue and green.

Enjolras turned around, put on a serious, hopefully non-threatening expression feeling like an actor on a stage – and rang.

There wasn’t a single sound for a few moments, then a click, the door flew open, another click of a released safety cash and he found himself – as expected – with a gun pointed at his face.

He didn’t even flinch.

At least not right away.

Only when the gun was lowered and Enjolras stared into an absolutely unexpected, incredibly familiar face and the feeling that followed was similar to the one of a punch into the gut.

 

Montparnasse didn’t look much different from how Enjolras remembered him, his hair was a bit longer and the shadows under his eyes were a bit darker but that was it.

 

The other man didn’t look surprised as he immediately lowered his gun. His posture and movements were as effortlessly graceful as Enjolras remembered but he didn’t pretend to be relaxed or unaffected.

Montparnasse was a good actor, a great one, and Enjolras hadn’t forgotten how to read him even after two years had passed and right then, he knew he wasn’t putting up any act.

“Enjolras,” he said, same voice, same tone and the significance of what Enjolras had gotten to know about him was dwelled up in his mind with full force.

It had been easier to separate the man he knew from his past before but seeing Montparnasse’s face, it was impossible to try and bring everything into one picture while keeping the same unbiased, pragmatic stance.

Enjolras could have said a million things, accusations, reproaches. He could have simply ignored the other man.

But Montparnasse just stood there, not pretending that everything was alright, trying to play it off, simply waiting for Enjolras to choose what to do next, how he wanted to approach the situation.

The moment was _absurd_. So absurd and Enjolras looked at the other man with wide eyes and simply heard himself asking, “How was Casablanca?”

 

Like it was possible to pretend nothing had happened even if it was only for a couple of seconds.

 

Montparnasse’s eyebrows lowered fractionally. The smile that spread over his face was only a hint to something broader but real nonetheless.

“Beautiful,” he said and right then Enjolras knew that this was all the pretending they were going to do.

 

Feuilly broke the momentary silence as he simply walked up from behind Enjolras and into the apartment. “Long time no see Parnasse,” he said, composed and sure and that was it.

Montparnasse’s smile warmed up.

Enjolras stepped to the side so Jehan could come through the door and when they reached Montparnasse Enjolras had to blink a few times in quick succession as Montparnasse immediately leaned down to hug them.

He looked at Feuilly who seemed equally surprised at the sight of their former forger tightly hugging Jehan. Enjolras recalled the few occasions when he had so much as received a handshake from the other man.

Enjolras could have sworn Jehan was even whispering something into his ear but then Montparnasse froze.

 

For a moment nothing happened. Nothing at all.

 

Then Enjolras’s followed the gaze of Montparnasse’s widening eyes.

 

Grantaire’s face was absolutely expressionless, closed off and empty.

 

It hit Enjolras, again right then, what kind of brilliant actors forgers were, how easily they were able to control their expressions and movements and the image they presented, held up for everyone they wanted to because it was like Enjolras could still _feel_ the emotions raging underneath the surface even though he didn’t see them, even though Grantaire was perfectly concealing them under a mask of nothingness.

He swallowed hard and stayed where he was as Montparnasse released Jehan.

He stepped forward slowly, not afraid but definitely estimating the situation carefully like approaching an animal, if wild or shy Enjolras couldn’t have said in that moment.

When there was only a distance of two steps, maybe less, he stopped. Then he held out his hand.

They looked at each other for a silent moment before Grantaire stepped forward and pulled the other man into an embrace that was short, harsh and over too quickly for Montparnasse to reciprocate. Only then Grantaire took the offered hand and, without ever breaking eye contact, said, “I think I never thanked you.”

 

Of all the ways Enjolras could have imagined the situation to go down, that would never occurred to him in a million years.

 

Montparnasse seemed to handle his surprise better. “Never would have asked you to,” he said earnestly.  
Grantaire shook his head. “You saved my life.”

The other man huffed and _that_ sounded more like the Montparnasse Enjolras remembered. “Did I really?”

A shadow fell over Grantaire’s face and he let go of the other man’s hand. “For long enough,” he said and Enjolras looked back and forth between the two men and suddenly, finally his mind made sense of their words. Of everything, really.

 

Grantaire who had kept Montparnasse’s past private for so long.

Grantaire who had never uttered as much as one resentful word about the other man.

Grantaire who had been discovered as a spy by a ruthless, criminal organisation.

Grantaire who should have been shot and should have been dead.

Grantaire who had only survived because the bullet hadn’t hit an immediately live threatening target.

Montparnasse who could easily shoot someone in the _eye_ from 50 feet away if he wanted to.

 

“You’re the one that shot him,” Enjolras heard himself saying, disbelievingly, shocked and god, how could he constantly not be able to figure out what was going on until it was obviously laid out in front of him. He stared at Montparnasse whose eyes along with everyone else’s had turned to him and Enjolras felt the overwhelming urge to punch him. “You tried to save his life by _shooting_ him, were you out of your goddamn-”

“ _Enjolras_ ,” Grantaire interrupted him.

His voice wasn’t loud, nor was its tone firm. He simply sounded drained and Enjolras bit back the words on the tip of his tongue and shut his mouth with all the willpower he could muster up.

 

Montparnasse’s eyebrows rose.

 

Before Enjolras could say anything else or reconsider not punching him, he sighed. “You’re not here to yell at me. You can save that for later,” he said and turned around calling out, “Éponine! Everything’s fine!”

 

Enjolras might have been able to control the emotions displayed on his face better if the last minutes hadn’t been what felt like some of the most draining of his entire life, so when a door on the right side of the room opened and a young woman stepped out, not much older than twenty, he couldn’t help but stare at her, appalled.

 

She was thin, long brown hair falling unceremoniously over hunched shoulders and the reason he couldn’t contain his consternation was that she looked even more fragile than he could have imagined, more fragile than Jehan, even more slender, more vulnerable with tension radiating from every muscle in her body.

And then cold, dark brown eyes in a sharp edged face were meeting Enjolras’, hard as steel and a shiver ran down his spine. She put the gun that she held in her right hand back into the holster on her side with quick, trained movements all without breaking eye contact once.

 

“You don’t need to look at me like I’m about to fucking break. I could have shot you myself if I needed to,” she said, voice deeper and cutting. Thin lips turned up into a sharp, wolfish grin. “But Parnasse was nice enough to offer answering the door.”

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's back!  
> And look who's finally here!  
> (I was so excited writing this chapter.)


	20. Part III. Enjolras VI/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so, so long and I am sorry, I thought about separating it and put one part of it at the beginning of the next chapter but I just felt like it wouldn’t fit the pace of the next chapter which is going to be just a lot more fast-paced and it didn’t feel right, I my opinion. So I decided to give you this one, huge chapter all at once, I hope that’s okay. It’s really dialogue-heavy and I didn’t plan on it getting so long but whenever I start writing Montparnasse it seems I am not able to make it short. I am not able to make anything short actually.  
> Also I should theoretically be studying for exams but I’ve had such a creative phase lately, it’s terrible. I’m basically being productive and still procrastinating, where’s the justice in that?  
> Anyway, here’s the chapter. It’s long. I hope you enjoy it. ♥

 

 

VI/VII

 

***

 

Maybe Enjolras had spent too much time in the company of forgers lately because seeing the face of someone who was frightened and tense and terrified and _not_ able to hide those emotions with a well arranged, unmeaning facial expression left him more shocked than he had expected.

The young woman – and Enjolras would have had trouble calling her as more than a girl if it wasn’t for the dark, seasoned depths in her eyes – looked like her flight instinct was going to kick in any moment even though her words were cutting and her gaze unrelenting.

After she finished talking there wasn’t even a second in which an undoubtedly tense silence could have risen because a small bundle of limbs and dark shaggy hair darted out of the room behind her and without a moment of caution or hesitation flung himself into the arms of Bahorel with a delighted squeal.

Bahorel, grinning broadly, picked up the boy who had to be twelve or thirteen, throwing him over one shoulder with a theatrical groan.

“Jesus Christ, warn a guy, you’re freaking heavy,” the tall man grunted even though he had picked up the kid with an ease as if he didn’t weight more than a feather.

The boy, upside down, started pounding his fists on the broad expanse of Bahorel’s back, laughing delighted the whole time. “Put me down, you big oaf!”

“No can do,” Bahorel grinned, swinging from left to right, thoroughly shaking the boy in the process.

 

Enjolras watched the scene unfold with a slightly detached sort of wondering like that you have while watching a movie that made absolutely no sense.

 

Jehan and Montparnasse were both smiling slightly, a still incredibly unusual expression on Montparnasse’s face. Grantaire had an eyebrow raised with an otherwise perfectly adapt poker-face and Feuilly stared like someone Courfeyrac would giggle and make a suggestive comment about.

Not really helpful either.

Only the young woman’s reserved look and even more tense set of shoulders made it clear that the boy currently coddled by Bahorel had to be the other Thénardier child that Enjolras, in the whole excitement and exertion, had almost forgotten about.

But well, it at least explained why Bahorel had come up with them in the first place and what he had meant when he had said, that _they_ liked him.

Enjolras could clearly get the idea and was once again equally intrigued and terrified by Jehan’s vigilance.

Forcing himself to access the situation factually, weighing how to proceed, he said nothing, watched Bahorel eventually setting the boy back on his two feet. Only then Enjolras turned to the woman. And still he said nothing. And waited.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” she eventually sighed after considering him for a long moment with her dark eyes. “I’m Éponine.”

“Enjolras,” he said but before he could get a chance to introduce Feuilly as well she cut him off.

“Great, alright. So Enjolras, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know about my _relations_ ,” she spit out the word like it was poison. “Parnasse did tell me about you as well. Practically vouched for you,” she continued sarcastically. Enjolras’s eyes flickered over to Montparnasse who shrugged unaffectedly as he met his gaze. “So – what do you want?”

“Well,” Enjolras started, mentally preparing himself for the following conversation, embracing the importance of it weighing down on his shoulders instead of pretending it didn’t exist.

It was there, clear in his mind, making him strangely calm.

“What did _Parnasse_ tell you?”

Éponine frowned still sizing him up. “That you’re supposed to be the good guys. Excuse me if I don’t really want to rely solely on  his judgement for this.”

“Apology accepted,” Montparnasse muttered under his breath and the grin Éponine flashed him was quick and sharp. “That wasn’t for you.” Then she turned back to Enjolras. “I do trust him with our lives,” she said almost challengingly and Enjolras couldn’t help the feeling that the most significant word of the sentence was ‘our’. “But I have no reason to trust you since all I know about you is that you clatter around in peoples’ subconscious to rip their secrets out of their brains. So what makes me believe you’re any different from the others I’ve know to do that except for the word of a few?”

Enjolras, after a moment of consideration, settled on the simplest way to answer. With honesty.

“Because we’re using the most efficient methods given to us to make the world a better place in every extent possible.”

“Making the world a better place?” Éponine repeated sarcastically but Enjolras hadn’t expected anything else for the moment. He did count the flicker of uncertainty on her face as a success though. “A lot of people say about themselves that they’re trying to _make the world a better place_. Some call them heroes, others vigilantes and still others terrorists.” She shrugged. “Question of perspective.”

“And what’s your perspective?” Enjolras asked calmly.

Éponine’s expression darkened if possible even more.

Enjolras didn’t break their eye contact once.

“The world you’re trying to save is a dark place. If you fight, you’ll fight endlessly. Even if you stop, it doesn’t matter. You can stop, or go on, at one point you’ll have seen so much that all you’ll have left is running for a safe place even if it’s impossible because you know that even your own dreams, your own mind isn’t. That’s what I know about the world. So why should I care about a couple of people trying to make it better when they’re actually part of the problem?”

 

Enjolras looked at her and wondered how long it had been since she’d had a moment as carefree as her brother only mere minutes ago.

He tried to remember when he had been.

He thought of morning light, weeks back in a hotel room in Brussels and Grantaire’s tousled hair.

He felt calm as he answered, “Because the only other thing else to do is nothing. And what better does that do? My team and I, we use the ways and abilities we were are best in. We could fight with blunt knives instead but we don’t have to. So why should we?”

“That’s _how_ you’re doing it, not why.”

“I told you why,” Enjolras replied calmly. The conversation felt strangely familiar to previous ones he had only that this time he looked into eyes that were dark and reluctantly unsure instead of blue and green and challenging. And beautiful.

Éponine let out a single bark of laughter. “You really want to tell me you’re doing all of it because you want to do _good_? To the world? To people you don’t even know? Be serious.”

“I am,” Enjolras said, as simple as that.

“As simple as that?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened for a second, then narrowed, narrowed even more until Enjolras felt like she was trying to look into his head, as if she could find out what he thought while they were both wide awake.

He didn’t look away, and waited.

“Surprisingly,” Éponine said slowly, cautiously, “I believe you.”

Enjolras didn’t even try to hide the relief he felt and it was like the entire room sighed with it.

“Then will you help us?”

“I didn’t know this was about helping _us_ ,” she said raising an eyebrow. “ _You_ want information. _You_ want to ‘make the world a better place’.”

“What do you want then?”

Her deliberately frigid expression slipped for a moment. She huffed and rolled her eyes looking a couple of years younger immediately. “How are you even real,” she muttered under her breath before she was serious again. “I want to _live_ , what do you think?”

“I don’t think that what you’re doing now can possibly be called living. You’re _surviving_ at best and you might be able to do that on your own.”

“Damn right I am.”

“And I wouldn't doubt that,” Enjolras insisted, “were the circumstances still be the same like a year ago. We didn’t even know you existed until yesterday.”

Éponine shrugged. “I can’t necessarily take credit for that. My _parents_ ,” as if the there was a physical pain accompanying saying the word, “weren’t ones fore over sharing.”

“We noticed that.”

“And still you found them. I can understand why _they_ did,” she said nodding her head in Jehan’s direction who was observing, listening to the conversation as everyone else in the room as well. “But you? Who are you? You’re a thief, a good-hearted one maybe but simply a thief nonetheless.”

“The best,” Enjolras countered unaffectedly.

“Overestimating yourself much, are you?”

Enjolras suppressed a what would have been a downright sarcastic smile. “I’ve been doing this since I was very young. But the point is, that it’s not _me_ who matters. We’re a team. And we got the information to the Thénardiers out of the head of Patron-Minette’s leader in under and hour –” he chose not the mention the spectacular disaster that had been – “We’re working together and we achieve what we want together and I’m not delusional enough to think I would have been able to get anywhere without help.”

For the first time when Éponine smiled it seemed honest, if still sharp, still slightly sarcastic. “Do you think it’ll help you to insult me?”

“Do you think it’ll help to drag this out any longer?” Enjolras shot back allowing himself a fraction of bluntness.

She laughed and shook her head but when she looked up again she seemed more nervous than before. Another expression that made her look younger and Enjolras suspected it was hard for her to keep up the unaffected façade for a longer time.

It was clear she had made her decision and Enjolras let just a tiny fraction of tension slip from his shoulders.

“I spend the last years of my life as far away from my parents as possible. I don’t know much. Honestly, I don’t know if I can tell you anything of relevance anymore. You think I’m more important than I am. I am not.”

“Everyone is,” Enjolras said and the young woman stared at him wordlessly before she shook her head again, smiling.

“Christ, you’re one of a kind aren’t you?”

Enjolras smiled back at her and eventually she looked up, sighed and pointed carelessly at the door. “You can call up the rest of your minions then.”

“Not my minions.”

She huffed. “Keep telling yourself that man.”

 

Enjolras chose to leave it at that and turned to catch Jehan’s approving look.

He thought it incredibly ridiculous how good Jehan’s approval made him feel about himself.

They nodded at Bahorel in a silent request and the tall man sighed exaggeratedly.

“Well, that’s my cue.” He grinned ruffling the hair of the young boy who hadn’t left his side the whole time.

“I’ll come with you,” Feuilly said far too quickly. The look he shot Enjolras was a “Don’t you dare judge me” as loud and clear as it could get. He hoped his look in return – “Make it quick” – was just as unmistakable.

 

“Well,” Montparnasse said to no one in particular into the silence as the door closed behind them. Then he slit down along wall until he was sitting with his back straight and legs stretched out, all of it almost insultingly graceful.

For the first time Enjolras actively realized that the whole room was completely empty. It was just a small probably supposed to be living room with a window and three doors, one leading out of the flat, the others on either side of the room probably into others.

Éponine raised an eyebrow at Montparnasse. The man sitting on the floor flashed her a crooked grin, a twitch of the corner of his mouth.

 

She sat down right where she was in the middle of the room.

 

Enjolras suddenly felt the ache of standing, walking and generally living the last hours and days in his legs.

He turned to Grantaire who met his gaze, smiled a small smile that immediately made Enjolras feel lighter again. Then he shrugged and sat down as well.

Enjolras tried to ignore Montparnasse watching the whole exchange with a knowing expression on his face.

Before Enjolras could give in the urge to snap at him, or worse, even though it was a strong one, the boy who he had forgotten about _again_ stepped in front of him successfully blocking the view on the former forger.

He seized Enjolras up with the same taxing eyes as his sister. “So,” he said and Enjolras felt weirdly put on sport be a goddamn kid. “You’re the boss?” His expression was a mixture of curiosity and derision.

“I’m Enjolras,” he offered feeling slightly awkward, “And I’m not really the boss, we’re a team.”

The boy raised an eyebrow, again startlingly familiar to his sister. “I’m Gavroche,” he said ignoring the rest of what Enjolras had said. “You fight bad guys, do you?”

Enjolras tried not to look around helplessly for any kind of support or instruction what to do.

Gavroche looked at him challengingly, waiting for him to answer.

Enjolras was absolutely clueless how to talk to a child about these things. Did you tell them their parents were first-class criminals? How much did Éponine tell him? When he looked up to searchingly to meet the young woman’s gaze she only watched the situation with something akin to sardonic glee.

 

Enjolras looked back at the boy.

 

“We…,” he started tentatively, “we do that, in a way. People like your…,” he trailed off. God damnit, and he had thought talking Éponine into cooperating would be the biggest challenge of the evening.

The boy snorted. “My parents are assholes.”

“Language!” Éponine warned sharply.

Gavroche shrugged.

Enjolras stared.

“Oh…okay?”

The boy seemed incredibly unaffected by the older man’s awkwardness. “So,” he pressed, “’Tis what you do right?”

“Yes…,” Enjolras said slowly and Gavroche’s whole face lit up.

“ _Amaze_! Can I help?”

 

Enjolras had no idea what was happening.

 

He could hear Éponine groaning but he was too confused by the hopeful anticipation in the boy’s eyes to pay attention to that.

“Don’t you think you’re a little to young for that?”

“Eh.” Gavroche waved him off. “I’m thirteen. You said you started when you were young. Parnasse started when he was, he was eight or something.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but glance at the other man again. Eight. Eight as well.

“I want to do what you do too and I’m not eight anymore. Or even ten or whatever.”

Enjolras looked at the boy that was barely tall enough to reach up to his chest and acting on an instinct kneeled down.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said feeling not only the boy’s eyes on him but those of everyone else as well. He could feel Grantaire looking at him. It was an almost warm sensation on his face. “I wasn’t in the position to choose something so life changing, especially not the way I was trained. I can’t tell you if I’d chosen it but no one should be put in that position at such an age.”

Gavroche frowned. “Parnasse said the same.”

Enjolras almost flinched. “And don’t you think you should listen to him?”

The boy huffed indicating clearly how much he thought of that suggestion and except for that simply ignored it. “I want to. I don’t want to run away all the time. I want to help!”

“That’s… very noble of you,” Enjolras tried and Gavroche rolled his eyes.

“Noble, my ass.”

“Gavroche!”

“Sorry!” he shot back at Éponine, not sorry at all, then turned back to Enjolras. “Can I at least have your gun when you’re dead then?”

 

Éponine buried her face in her hands.

 

Thankfully there was a knock at the door in just the right moment and Enjolras practically fled from a thirteen year old to let the others in.

 

After a round of introductions and Courfeyrac shamelessly congratulating Montparnasse on being far more interesting now that they actually knew something about him, thirteen people settled in an empty living room.

“Can’t remember the last time I was willingly in the company of so many people,” Éponine muttered.

Enjolras wondered when he had last felt so at ease in the company of so many people.

“I don’t know how much I can tell you,” she continued, getting straight to the point after everyone had settled on the floor. “I know Parnasse already gave Jehan all the marks that were related to my parents.”

Jehan nodded. “The problem is that they don’t tell us very much. They seem to have no connection whatsoever, no greater motive behind them. As if they chose completely arbitrary. The Thénardiers don’t tell Patron-Minette what they use the information for. It’s been only about money and blackmail material for politicians, diplomats, scientists, business people, everything. Twenty-six marks in four years and there doesn’t seem to be any sense to it.”

Éponine shrugged but it seemed like she had to stop herself from flinching at every word as if someone was going to jump out of a corner every second to stop her. “They want wealth and power, that’s not a far-fetched motif. And what they hate,” she looked around, “is when someone gets in between that.” She took a deep breath, overcoming the last reluctance that kept her from talking.

“They practically found out about the dream sharing business by chance. There was a tenant, back when they had the inn in Montfermeil. I don’t remember much about him, weird fellow, and they realized the significance of such a way to control the mind of people. They’re not stupid, they're manipulative and devious and a method like that seemed practically perfect to for their _delusions of grandeur,_ to put it lightly.”

“And what is their goal? Like what's the end-game?” Feuilly frowned. “To control the _world_?”

Éponine shook her head. “More like the people. They want the dreams because the dreams can get them anything they really want. The control over the mind of people, of who gets to go under and who doesn’t. They would have money, they’d have power and they’d be feared by everyone and absolutely untouchable. As far as I know what they are looking for … is a way to get their own Somnacin. Because it's the only way to make it possible. And there's only one person who has access to it.”

 

It was almost comically, Enjolras thought, how every head in the room turned to Jehan.

 

“They want your place,” Cosette got out, appalled.

Jehan said rigidly in their wheelchair, expression hard. “Is that really surprising? A lot of people do. But they won’t be able to find a way to do do that.”

Combeferre frowned. “How can you be sure of that?” the chemist asked. “It's in a way, just a chemical. An incredibly complex one, yes, and it might be difficult to find out the components of it as well as the ratio but not impossible. I mean it’s difficult enough to regulate it and you’d need time, money and, well, a laboratory and we’re always on the run so you’ll find no dream-sharing chemist with the capacities to find it out. But those marks? You said there were scientists as well, right? What should they want from scientists if not to find out how to make Somnacin? They might take years to get it but they will, eventually, if they’re not stopped before. It’s madness to think they won’t.”

“But you could just cut the supply to Patron-Minette right?” Marius spoke up. “They need samples to analyze, don’t they? Then they wouldn’t have the opportunity to get to Somnacin in the first place.”

“And we would have cut the only current connection to them we have right now,” Jehan disagreed.

“They wouldn’t have the influence they do now if Patron-Minette wouldn’t have gotten access to Somnacin in the first place,” Éponine cut in eyeing Jehan. Their usually soft hazel eyes narrowed. She continued seemingly unintimidated. It was a good act. “Come on, I can’t be the only one thinking that. Everyone says you’re ‘neutral’, whatever that means but you’re the one who chooses who get the Somnacin. I just wonder if you have _any_ idea _who_ you choose.”

Jehan looked at her first, calmly, then around at the others. “The capable ones.”

“The capable ones,” Éponine repeated drily.

“Wait, _that’s_ your criteria?” Courfeyrac sounded a lot more scandalized then her by the prospect. “What about, I don’t know, moral compatibility? Like, good people?”

“There are no such absolutes,” Jehan said, a harder edge to their voice, “Dream-sharing is a profession. It’s an incredibly rare skill to have and dangerous if you don’t have the talent and proper training. Everyone can walk around in a dream if it’s stable enough but creating, shaping raw subconscious? Forgers, architects, extractors, that’s a _vocation_. If someone has passion and talent I give them the chance to make something out of it. And if they’re using it to just spend hours building palaces in their minds then be it. If they’re using it to do good, then be it. And if they’re using it to go around, steal some money, rob some corrupt business moguls, then be it. Why should I care? But _yes_ , if uses this way when starting yearning for more, getting fanatic, delusional, _that’s_ the reason to intervene. I don’t care about one man’s money getting to another one and someone goes and builds another villa in L.A. There’ve always been people like that, whatever I do won’t change that. But too much power, cruel, egoistical power in the hand of one person, that’s something I can try and will stop if I can.”

They had not once raised their voice.

As they finished the room had fallen silent and Enjolras couldn’t know what everyone else was thinking but he himself couldn’t find an argument to condemn Jehan. He might have to think about their words again more closely but in the moment he could only think that he wasn’t doing much else with Les Amis and had never intended to.

They didn’t fight simple, materialistic crimes like that, he would have become a cop had he wonted to stop money being stolen from wealthy people.

They were fighting abuse of power and exploitation of innocent and stolen freedom.

Enjolras wouldn’t be surprised if all the other people Jehan provided with Somnacin were either thieves or creative minds building skyscrapers or whatever else in their dreams and it wasn’t a shocking revelation.

 

He chose to say nothing.

No one else seemed inclined to make another comment either.

 

Eventually, after what could have been minutes passing silently, Courfeyrac sighed. “If the Thenardiers find a way to make Somnacin they _will_ have power. And they won’t use it like you do, so much is pretty clear,” he said to Jehan and skipped addressing anything else they said. He didn’t have to.

Enjolras was rarely that thankful for the architect's empathy and ability to get a situation like that back on track without is seeming too forced.

“They won’t be able to,” Jehan insisted again.

Combeferre pinched the bridge of his nose, then slid his glasses back up. “But _why_?”

Jehan didn’t answer immediately and for the first time they seemed unsure how to proceed. It was a surprising sight after the previous speech and made them look nervous, like a teenager. “They just… won’t,” they tried weakly and it was obvious no one was going to let that answer put an end to the question. “It’s not… it’s not just mixing some chemicals in a test tube,” they continued hesitantly. “It’s not like you figure out the components, play around in a laboratory for a couple of hours and there it is.”

Enjolras frowned and was about to friendly ask Jehan to stop beating around the bush when Combeferre gasped.

The chemist’s eyes widened behind his glasses, his hand had grabbed the closest thing which happened to be Courfeyrac’s arm but he was staring at Jehan. “It’s an element.”

Jehan looked like they were about to backtrack for a moment but then they nodded.

“You discovered a new _element_?” Combeferre’s voice was close to the point of cracking, absolutely stunned.

“ _I_ didn’t. But I am the only one who knows about it. Until now, I suppose.”

Combeferre looked like he was about to swoon. “That is _amazing_.”

Enjolras could hear Courfeyrac mumble a fond, ‘nerd’ under his breath, everyone else seemed thoroughly confused, either about the significance of the new information or calm, usually perfectly composed Combeferre’s outburst of delight.

Enjolras didn’t pretend to know particularly much about chemistry but what he understood was the advantageous situation the revelation put them in.

 

It was exactly, _exactly_ what he had hoped for when they had gotten into Jehan’s plane and made their way to New York.

 

“We need a plan,” he said, the first words in what felt like a long time.

“How could you possible come up with a plan _now_ that you didn’t think of before?” Éponine asked disbelievingly. “What does that change?”

“ _Everything_. We have what need now. We know what the Thénardiers really want, that’s the important thing, that’s how we can get them. We have to find them, of course, but with Patron-Minette we have a link, we know how to get closer and at the same time they don’t know how to find us. We’re invisible for them. Right?”

“They know Les Amis,” Cosette said thoughtfully, “But that’s it. Not your names, not the faces they would have to look for.”

“She’s right,” Jehan agreed slowly, “they don’t. That’s an advantage, an important one.”

Enjolras felt a surge of triumph that made him feel warm all over. He couldn’t help but smile and looked at Grantaire, for what he didn’t know, reassurance maybe, trying to show him that they were going to come out of this successfully. That everything, no matter how it had seemed before, was going to be _okay_.

Grantaire looked at the ground.

“Also we have time,” Feuilly said, “it might take us a while, a long while even and we have to be careful not to let them get to us first in any way but if they’re so invested to find out a way to get their own Somnacin and they aren’t going to succeed, we’ll have time.”

Enjolras mind was full of ideas, plans, _possibilities_.

“I need to get back to Paris,” Jehan said and Enjolras heart sang. “We know what we have to look for now, I need to figure out who might be their next marks, we might be able to envisage their steps. But ... we shouldn’t rush things now, we have to consider our options and, and approaches, we can’t be careless.”

As much as Enjolras hated the prospect of waiting he knew Jehan was right.

“When can we leave?”

The ‘we’re coming with you’ was out of question. Jehan’s lips curled up into a smile.

“Over the airport not before tomorrow. We only just arrived, it would be too suspicious. I’ll see what I can do but I don’t think there’s a better way to leave the city tonight.”

He turned to Bossuet. “Did Joly made the hotel reservations yet?”

“’Course he did,” Bossuet grinned, enfolded his long legs and stood up. “All of the bags should be there too already. Cosette, do you -”

“Of course,” the young woman said with an equally wide grin and handed Bossuet her incredibly large handbag. Enjolras was sure she could fit half an apartment’s worth of things into it, it was quite impressive. Bossuet fished an envelope out of the bag and after that everyone scrambled up and about while Bossuet handed out adresses and key cards.

He handed Enjolras an address with a grin.

“For two,” he said, winked and put two key cards on top of it.

Enjolras bit back a laugh. He supposed he had lost any illusion of being subtle. He couldn’t say he cared. He was feeling almost giddy.

Grantaire was already looking at him as he walked over holding up the two key cards.

“This is starting to become a pattern, isn’t it?”

The other man let out a quiet huff and smiled and the euphoria and excitement running through Enjolras body turned into something softer and steadier. Grantaire cast down his eyes, Enjolras heart skipped a beat.

“I need to talk to you,” he heard himself saying and didn’t think anyone could have been able to mistake the gentleness in his voice that felt strangely unconnected to his body.

“I think,” Grantaire stated softly but insistent, “there’s someone else you should talk to first.”

Enjolras frowned, confused at what Grantaire meant until he nodded his head at Montparnasse.

 

Oh.

 

“I…,” he started uncertainly but Grantaire cut him off.

“It’s alright Enjolras. Whatever you need to talk to me about I’m sure it can wait.”

Enjolras wanted to tell him that, _no_ , it couldn’t but Grantaire was going to be there in the morning, they would have time, time to talk and to work things out.

Who even knew what Parnasse was going to do, where he was heading off to again or when.

And yet Enjolras couldn’t think of one thing to say to him that would have been more important than talking to Grantaire right then.

But “You should talk to him,” Grantaire said again and Enjolras knew he was right. He was going to regret not getting answers should Parnasse disappear again before he had the chance to.

And maybe it was the best moment now, when he was too euphoric and triumphant to think about punching people in the face.

Enjolras nodded and Grantaire smiled.

He took one of the cards from Enjolras’s hand, gently, letting his fingers rest on top of Enjolras’s for longer than strictly necessary.

“I’ll wait for you.”

“Alright.”

Enjolras watched him go and the room clear out until Montparnasse caught his eye, glanced down at the watch around his wrist and nodded for Enjolras to follow him into one of the other rooms.

Enjolras took a deep breath and did.

The room wasn’t as empty as the supposed living room but the lone mattress on the floor, an opened but neatly packed suitcase, a vacant chair and light bulb dangling from the ceiling didn’t make it look any more inviting. Quite the opposite, it only seemed even bleaker somehow.

“Charming.”

The other man huffed. “It’s temporary,” he said and bend over the suitcase, obviously to look for something, his back turned to Enjolras as he continued, “I only stayed here waiting for you, you know. Ponine is certainly not going to let you close to her home even though Jehan knows where it is now. I don’t think she and Gavroche are going to stay there much longer as well.”

He made a triumphant sound and stood up, a half full bottle of wine in one hand. He uncorked it and drowned at least another quarter in one go.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow.

Montparnasse shrugged. “It’s been a long day. Actually, who am I kidding, it’s been a long couple of years.” He contemplated the bottle, then held it out to Enjolras.

When he didn’t move the corner of the other man’s mouth twitched treacherously, resembling a smile. “We can drink on victory,” he suggested and Enjolras knew sarcasm when he heard it.

Still, for some reason he took the bottle. "Don't jinx it."

It felt like a peace offering.

An almost comfortable silence fell.

“I think,” Montparnasse started, “I should apologize.”

Enjolras would have very much prefered the comfortable silence.

It felt like the words practically shoved everything he had been angry about right into his face again.

Instead of throwing the bottle at Montparnasse’s head Enjolras raised it to his lips and drank. The wine ran down his throat pleasantly but helped nothing to make him calmer.

“You _think_?” he tried not to snap and the other man rolled his eyes.

“Don’t make this complicated Enjolras.”

“ _Complicated?_ Nothing I could do would make this any more complicated. Why didn’t you tell me that you worked with Patron-Minette? Or whatever. You could have told me.”

“You could have asked,” Montparnasse retoured but there was no accusation in his voice.

Enjolras’s anger merged into something that felt more like regret.

He sighed and drank again. “I know,” he admitted.

Montparnasse didn't look at him. “I am sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Enjolras found it surprising how it felt like he really meant it. How quickly things changed, he wondered, if you let them. “I never asked and it doesn’t matter now. I suppose it was just a shock, it is still a shock to find out that I didn’t know all that much about you after working with you for three years. That's not how I am, with people. And I just, I don’t understand you.”

“Did you ever?”

Enjolras sighed again. “No, I didn’t.”

Montparnasse nodded, looked at him. “Do you mind?”

And Enjolras suppressed yet another sigh and simply shook his head. “No. To be honest I don’t. That’s just always been you.”

The other man hummed in affirmation, then sat down at the edge of mattress and gestured for Enjolras to sit down on the chair. Resigned Enjolras did so, the bottle of wine still in his hands. He didn’t feel particularly like letting go.

Montparnasse watched him out of black eyes until he was the one to break the silence again. “We’re not that much different, you and I, you know?”

Enjolras scoffed. “Oh really?”

“Well, I’m not trying to save the world or anything like that, I really don’t care. I was a thief because I liked it. I like having money, I like having the freedom to do what I want and I stick to those who can guarantee that for me. It’s not difficult to understand.”

“I don’t see anything similar so far,” Enjolras remarked sarcastically.

Montparnasse’s lips twitched.

“And honestly,” Enjolras continued, “from what I know now, from what I know now that you’ve done it doesn’t really seem like that to me, does it?”

“Because what you don’t know and what’s most important - I stick to bargains. Not the well, traditional kind of bargains if you might have guessed,” he added dryly, “but the ones I make with myself. And when I make one, I’m keeping it. If I want to do something, if I believe something to be right for whoever it may concern in the situation, be it me or someone else, I am doing it, no matter where it gets me because it is my choice. I didn’t have a lot of choices when I was younger. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me. If I make a choice, if i make a promise to myself then I’ll keep it. Wherever it takes me. Because I have the choice to do so. Sound familiar?”

Enjolras bit down on the inside of his cheek, met the gaze of dark, challenging eyes and emptied the rest of the wine bottle.

Montparnasse leaned back and huffed. There might have been a little bit of triumph in it.

Enjolras tried to ignore it. “What choices are we talking about?” he asked and the other man shrugged.

“Joining your team, firstly.”

“Was that a choice? Or a necessity?”

“Choice.”

“What else?”

“Not killing Grantaire.”

Enjolras wished there’d be more wine in the bottle left if only to have an excuse not to throw the damn thing. “You _shot_ him,” he said, trying to remain calm and collected even though he already knew he was failing. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t be responsible if he had died?”

“He would have died if I had wanted him to.”

“Great! And what do you want for that, Parnasse? Huh? An Award? A thank you?”

This time the smile that spread over the other man’s face was wider, sly. “Now why would _you_ feel the need to thank me had I’d saved his life?” he asked and his voice was teasing.

Enjolras stared at him. Then, because it felt like the appropriate course of action, he rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Maybe not the most mature one though.

Thankfully Montparnasse did shut up. Or at least he changed the topic. Somewhat.

“I knew he was a spy.”

And Enjolras had not seen that one coming. “What? Since when?”

“Pretty much since the beginning.”

“And you didn’t do something about it? Was… was that some kind of _game_ to you?”

“No,” he answered seemingly unaffected by the renewed anger seeping through Enjolras words. “I didn’t want to make a mess out of it. I don’t actually _like_ getting involved in politics. Jehan wanted information, Patron-Minette needed a new forger, I got my peace. What else should I’ve done?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Enjolras practically spat out, fingers tightening around the bottle in his hand. “Protect an innocent human being?”

“I did protect a human being. Not an innocent one but I don’t know of one innocent person in this business, so…”

“Before Jehan –,” Enjolras started but Montparnasse cut him off with bark of laughter.

“You're not that naïve, Enjolras.” He sounded almost asthonished. “How much do you actually _know_ about him?”

And Enjolras was aware that the answer to that question wasn’t much. Maybe he was naïve, in one point or the other. It didn’t mean he cared about it.

 

Because he had made a choice.

“Enough.”

 

Montparnasse regarded him for a long moment before he said, “A lot of things happen in two years,” and it sounded approving.

Enjolras leaned back in the chair, looking at the bleak walls of the room.

“Why didn’t you kill him? It wouldn’t have mattered, right? You could have, I’m sure they asked you to and you killed people, I know _that_.”

“Who hasn’t.”

“I’m being serious Parnasse.”

The other man took a deep breath and let it out with a heavy sigh. “I didn’t want to. I know he was a spy and I knew which of the things he said were lies to get by and when he was honest. And when he was, he was my friend. And I know that it sounds sad and you are going to think me miserable for it, but there I was, _twenty-one years old_ ,” he laughed coldly, “and he was the first person I would have ever called that. So no, I wasn’t going to kill him, for me he never did anything to deserve it. On the contrary.”

Enjolras was quiet. He didn’t say it but it wasn’t a far-fetched thought that he was looking at a man that was miserable and he felt something like guilt for not seeing it before.

“Don’t pity me,” Montparnasse said tonelessly.

“For what it’s worth,” Enjolras said earnestly, earnestly because it was the truth, “I always considered you a friend. A friend I never knew a lot about or understood, for that matter and whose ideals –”

“Or lack thereof.”

“Or lack thereof I heartily disagree with and whose past has been, well, a shock, to say at least. But a friend, nonetheless.”

Montparnasse looked like he was about to say something in return but then he hesitated and eventually didn’t.

Then, suddenly, he reached for his suitcase, quickly found a piece of paper and pen and scribbled something down. He stood up and his face was carefully blank.

Enjolras stood up as well and took the paper from the other man’s hand as he held it out.

It was an address in Montreal.

“What is this?”

“My address,” Montparnasse explained unnecessarily. “It’s where I’ve been staying for the last years, it’s one of Jehan’s safe houses. If you ever… need an out, or anything like that – there’s a key under the left window still.”

Enjolras looked at the scribbled words, then back at Montparnasse. He didn’t know _why_ one was ever supposed to need an 'out' but the sentiment felt important nonetheless.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Enjolras eyed the almost empty room and suddenly comprehension dawned on him.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

The other man nodded. “You don’t need me anymore. And I just stayed to make sure Éponine wasn’t going to run off until Jehan came back with you. I’m pretty sure she’s also still really pissed at me because I contacted Jehan in the first place so it’s better if I make myself scarce. I swear she tried to poison me yesterday.” He even somewhat smiled at that.

It wasn’t like Enjolras had expected anything else. He ran a hand through his hair and couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of déjà-vu, like they had parted ways for the first time not over two years ago already. “When’s your cab coming?”

Montparnasse laughed and shook his head but Enjolras was sure he was smiling as well. He looked down on the watch around his wrist. “Five minutes.”

 

They left the wine bottle on the window still.

 

Enjolras gave him space, stepped back as he closed his suitcase and said goodbye to Éponine and Gavroche. The others had long left and Enjolras didn’t want to interrupt his moment with the siblings even though Montparnasse told him they already knew about him leaving. Éponine hugged him, short and hard and Enjolras might have heard her whispering, “Thank you, you bastard.”

No one mentioned it.

Gavroche condescended to giving Montparnasse a fist-bump.

They waved goodbye to Enjolras as well, not incredibly friendly but also not unfriendly so that was better than the welcome and Enjolras and Montparnasse took the elevator down without speaking. and stepped out onto the street.

It had gotten dark outside, night and the streets were lit by windows and cars.

When a cab pulled up Montparnasse turned to him again.

“Do you want me to drop you off at your hotel?”

After a short drive, the streets weren’t that full anymore, Enjolras got out of the car and Montparnasse smiled slightly as he rolled down the window.

“I guess, I’ll see you around, Enjolras.”

“See you around Parnasse,” he said as well even though he didn’t think it was going to be soon.

Or ever.

He held out his hand and Montparnasse shook it.

And then, he hesitated, again, as if he wasn’t sure what to say or saying anything at all.

But when he looked up and his dark eyes were determined.

“You will be alright Enjolras,” he said as if it was the surest thing in the world.

 

And Enjolras had no idea how to respond to that.

 

When the car drove away he didn’t wait around to watch it leave but pulled out the key card, made his way through the lobby of the hotel, no one paid him mind and he didn’t question it.

He felt an overwhelming mixture of serenity and gratitude but first and foremost tiredness after a long, draining day. 

Every step felt like a mile as he walked up the stairs to the room and as he finally opened the door he could hardly keep his eyes open.

Grantaire was curled up in a pile of blankets in the double bed, hair tousled and eyes closed.

Enjolras pulled off his shoes and jeans and too tired for anything else laid down next to him, sneaking an arm around the other man's waist pulling him close.

 

It took only a few seconds before he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

 

 

***


	21. Part III. Enjolras VII/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been writing this chapter with my brain constantly shouting ‘ABORT ABORT’ but oh well. I’m really sorry. TW panic attacks, blood and… well, death, kind of (there’s a REASON there’s NO major character death warning, okay?! Okay. Just… keep that in mind.)  
> Last chapter of part three, I’ll… leave you to it.

 

VII/VII

 

***

 

When Enjolras woke up again it didn’t feel like he had slept for a long time.

It felt like he had closed his eyes and then opened them again only a moment later to the same dark hotel room. It took him a moment to figure out why he had woken up when Grantaire moved as a mobile phone rang obnoxiously loud in the silence for what had to be the second time.

Enjolras bit back a groan because _why?_

He had slept very, very good – at least he thought so – and now he was already feeling an ache rising in his head again.

He still, if reluctantly, sat up as Grantaire shuffled through the clothes next to his side of the bed and eventually managed to find his phone.

The screen lit up the side of his face in a cold blue.

 

“Yeah?” he answered with a voice that was still rough from sleep.

 

Enjolras watched as Grantaire absentmindedly ran his fingers through the dark hair curling at the nape of his neck. “Woah, slow down Jehan, I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying.”

Increasingly awake and increasingly confused Enjolras rolled on his side to find his watch or phone or anything else that would be kind enough to tell him the time because something very, _very_ worrying started to settle deep in the pit of his stomach refusing to be shaken off.

 

It made no sense Jehan was calling in the middle of the night unless…

 

“ _What_?” Grantaire breathed, more a whisper than a voice that did nothing to soothe Enjolras’s concerns.

He was wide awake immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

Grantaire turned slightly and held up a hand to silence him. Enjolras could see the tension in the other man’s jaw and shoulders.

He could have sworn it had gotten colder in the room from one second to another.

Grantaire took the phone from his ear and put Jehan on speaker.

 

“…calm,” said Jehan firmly but Enjolras didn’t miss the edge in their voice. “We can wonder how they found us later, we –”

 

“Jehan, what happened?” Enjolras interrupted sharply, surprised that his own voice stayed steady. He didn’t think as he reached out and curled a hand around Grantaire’s forearm feeling another hand covering his own a moment later.

 

Enjolras didn’t know whose rapid pulse it was he felt under his fingertips.

 

“One of my informants just let me know that Patron-Minette is here, in the city,” Jehan explained and Enjolras’s blood ran cold. “Babet and at least five more. It might be a coincidence but I doubt it. They might only know we’re in the city, not where we are _exactely_ , or they do, it doesn’t matter right now, we have to get out of here. _Immediately_. If they’re after us, you’re probably the ones most in danger.”

Enjolras was up and out of the bed within a second, listened only with one ear while Jehan continued, “We can’t go back to Éponine’s, we can’t put them in even more danger. I’m sending you an address, we’ll meet there in _half an hour_ , do you understand me? Half an hour.”

“Understood,” Grantaire said.

“You should keep away from the main streets and –”

“We know how to run Jehan, wouldn’t be the first time.”

 

The ‘could be the last time’ hung unspoken in the silence.

 

“Half an hour,” Jehan said. “Be careful. Don’t worry about the others, I’ll take care of everything.” And they hung up.

 

Enjolras’s brain viciously kept all the panic from dwelling up inside him and instead let the rational part take over.

Running. Protocol. There was a protocol for situations like this.

Pulling his sweater over his head. Throwing the other one over at Grantaire who caught it mid air.

They didn’t speak.

Trousers on. Shoes on.

Laptop. Backpack.

Coat.

Gun. Number one, number two.

 

“Ready?”

Grantaire looked up, phone in one hand, threw his bag over his shoulder, the left one. “Ready,” he said even though he didn’t sound like he meant it.

Enjolras wasn't sure if he meant it either. But they had no time to worry about that. Later, when the rush of adrenaline was over, when they could be sure they were safe, as safe as they could be, then they had time to worry. Or wonder.

Enjolras caught a glimpse on the clock on the wall of their floor.

4.15.

They didn’t speak and took the exit through the stairwell for the staff that was unsurprisingly empty and miraculously unlocked.

It was cold outside, colder than Enjolras had anticipated for the season but he wasn’t too surprised though, everything seemed colder, it fit the rushing blood in his veins.

Grantaire pulled up a map on his phone and in the shadow of the high house Enjolras leaned closer to look over his shoulder.

 

No one mentioned the hand holding the phone was trembling slightly.

 

“We should walk,” Grantaire said what Enjolras was thinking.

The address wasn’t so far away they couldn’t make it in half an hour. If they hurried. It was certainly better than trying to get a cab in the middle of the night waiting somewhere at a main street, staying at one spot for too long.

“We should walk,” Enjolras agreed. “Fast.”

Grantaire nodded and he looked grimly determined as they turned to the closest smaller street on their right.

 

The houses were towers around them.

Despite the streetlights illuminating the alleys in a yellow glow it seemed dark.

They passed a few drunks, slithering home, clinging to one another, their laughter filling the hollow silence as they paid no attention to the two men with bags over their shoulders and tense, fast steps, casting glances into every direction as they went.

 

Enjolras couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

 

There was a light pressure at his wrist and he looked up into Grantaire’s face, a silent question in his eyes. Enjolras intertwined their fingers and held on tight.

He looked at the street in front of him, didn’t allow his mind to wonder, wonder if they had been found, _why_ they had been found and what was going to happen. He listened to his steps on the pavement and held on to the grounding presence that was the other man’s hand in his.

 

He felt watched and his gun was pressing against his side as if the layers of clothes weren’t even there shielding his skin.

 

“Right,” Grantaire instructed with a glance at his phone and tugged at Enjolras hand.

He let himself be led into yet another side street with more houses, more streetlights and more dumpsters that  looked exactly like the previous three.

 

He didn’t so much hear as felt the first shot.

The air was ripped apart, right next to his head as the bullet missed him by inches.

 

The shot rang through the silence, loud in the deserted alley and the hand in Enjolras’s pulled him to the side in the single moment of pure panic that made his brain shut down and the world around him mute except for the rush of his own pulse in his ears.

One heartbeat, then everything came back into focus, speeding up, the gun was in Enjolras’s own hand a second later, raised.

Another shot fell as he aimed at the dark figure at the end of the street, aimed, pulled the trigger, missed.

The figure ducked, stepped to the side. “Run!” Grantaire shouted and Enjolras didn’t think about objecting for a single moment, adrenaline and blood making his heart beat to fast he might have worried in any different situation.

 

It was thrilling, overwhelming. It was incredible.

 

He hurried right behind Grantaire, gun in one hand just as yet another shot ripped through the night, not able to follow them as they slithered around the corner.

 

They ran.

The grimace on Enjolras’s face almost felt like a smile.

Another corner.

Another street.

Left.

Right.

The pavement was hard under his feet.

 

The sound of single cars forced its way to Enjolras’s ears and without stopping his steps he reached for Grantaire’s arm. He hadn’t noticed when he had let go of the other man’s hand.  
“Where are we going?”

“Main street,” Grantaire shot back, “More people. Cars.”

“It’s in the middle of the night!”

“We’re in fucking New York Enjolras!”

 

Enjolras pulled at the other man’s arm, reeling him around, almost had them crashing into the closest wall as he looked over his shoulder to see nothing, but an empty street, turned back to Grantaire.

“We stick to the sides, they know we’re here, trying to get away. We find a place to HIDE, let them think we’re gone.”

“But –”

“ _Grantaire_.”

The other man narrowed his eyes and Enjolras didn’t know if it was out of anger or the try to hide the fear in them.

The second passed and Grantaire nodded sharply and they were running again, back into the mess of smaller streets and darker alleys, vacant, no one following anymore as it seemed.

 

Enjolras still, always felt like there were a million eyes looking at him.

 

They stopped in the middle of a street that wasn't more than a small backstreet, dumpsters at their sides, dark windows, metal staircases up high.

 

“Did we shake them off?” Grantaire breathed heavily and Enjolras only then noticed his own lungs desperately seeking air, burning in his chest.

“I think so,” he said, breathing, breathing, gun pressed against the stabbing pain in his side.

“Did you see who it was?” Grantaire choked out and he looked like he was about to throw up.

The adrenaline of a near death experience, shooting match and running escape through what felt like miles of street labyrinths suddenly disappeared into the background of Enjolras mind as he looked at Grantaire clutching his sides, bag having slid to the ground as he stood, still breathing labouredly in the middle of the street.

“ _Hey_ , we’re going to get out of here,” he said, too soft, too easily and took a step back towards Grantaire.

 

One step.

He didn’t get to make the other to close the distance between them.

 

A man stepped out of the shadows and Enjolras placed the familiar face of the man whose mind he had been inside only a week ago too late.

Enjolras didn’t scream. He didn’t make a sound. About to raise his gun – too late – he only felt Grantaire shoving him to the side, to the ground as Babet shot. He felt the pavement as he hit the ground, then a hand grabbing the fabric of his coat as they ducked intuitively, scrambled behind the dumpster that deflected the second shot.

 

Grantaire groaned and Enjolras’s heart paused for a moment when he saw the other man’s face twisted with pain.

 

“Shoot that fucking bastard, I’m fine,” Grantaire ground out through gritted teeth and Enjolras was about to snap that he certainly wasn’t but concentrating on getting them both not killed seemed a more urgent matter.

 

Deep breath. Gun in his hand.

 

Enjolras fired a shot down the street, a second, without giving up cover.

Then he leaned forward, aimed at the target, the man meters away, taking cover behind a staircase, and shot.

There was a metal clunk as Enjolras missed and again as he ducked, dodging the bullet returning.

Enjolras’s hands weren’t shaking as he aimed again, again and missed once, twice but his heart was beating in his throat.

He leaned forward again and the noise of the shot that wasn’t his own was followed by a searing pain in his arm as the bullet tore apart his coat, grazed his skin and punched all air out of his lungs for a moment.

 

He didn’t scream.

 

He bit down onto his lip until he tasted blood, ignored the pain and ignored what were shots getting closer.

Instead he put the gun into his other hand.

He straightened himself, turned and missed the first time as the attacker ducked.

When he pulled the trigger again he could have sworn he missed the second time as well.

He hadn’t.

There were tears glistening at the edges of his vision and pain biting into his arm but a scream ripped through the air as the man tumbled back, dropped his gun and collapsed, motionless.

 

Enjolras slumped back but he didn’t let himself so much as let out the breath he was holding and scrambled towards Grantaire whose face was a sea of pain broken by a half of a grin as he looked up at Enjolras.

“Got him, didn’t you?” he rasped, then his voice turned into a groan and Enjolras found himself on his knees in the dirt of the street, the panic he had held back so long so perfectly rising in his chest as he reached out to calm, to comfort, _anything_.

“I did, I did, it’s going to be alright, where did he –,” he stammered, no control over the words tumbling out of his mouth, over the hand running through Grantaire’s hair, soothingly, tenderly, the other feeling for the wound, up his side, up his chest, _higher_ , finding blood soaked fabric under his fingertips.

His head snapped up looking into blue and green eyes.

Grantaire grinned weakly.

“ _No._ ”

Enjolras voice sounded far away even in his own ears as he pushed away the fabric, “No, no, no,” falling from his tongue at the sight of the gaping wound on the right side over Grantaire’s collar bone, too close to the neck, _too close to the neck_. And blood spilling out in a pulsing stream. Too much blood.

Enjolras might have hissed at the pain in his arm as he pulled off his coat, unaware of the cold or anything else, not even his own empty ramblings of,“It’s going to be alright, R. It’s going to be alright,” as he pressed the fabric on the wound, hard, blood on his fingers, red under his hand while parts of his brain send his other hand searching for a phone. “We’re going to call Jehan and, and they’ll take care of you okay? Everything is going to be fine, we’ll be safe, okay? Just don’t close your eyes. R, we’ll be –”

He stopped as long fingers curled around his wrist with barely any pressure.

Grantaire smiled, just a little, but more real than Enjolras had seen for days, weeks, ever maybe.

“It doesn’t matter chief.”

Enjolras’s thoughts, a screaming mess of fear and panic screeched to a halt.

“Don’t say that, don’t you _dare_ say that.”

“It’s alright,” Grantaire whispered, quietly. “It’s alright.”

Enjolras hadn’t noticed that there were tears running down his cheeks.

“It’s alright,” Grantaire soothed as if Enjolras was the one needing comfort. Fingers stroked gently along his wrist.

Then, barely audible, “You need to leave.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“You need to leave, don’t care about me, someone’s got to be here soon, you need to get to Jehan, you –”

“I’m not going to leave you,” Enjolras said and meant never, _never_ , “I’m not going to leave you, you hear me? I won’t.”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire breathed and then nothing.

No words, no breath, just silence.

 

Enjolras hands started trembling.

There was blood on his fingers, and everywhere. All he saw was red and black, nothing else.

His hand trembling, bloodied, felt for the phone, somewhere and he hardly realized what he was doing while his other hand kept pressing the coat down, down, down. He was barely able to tear his eyes away from the face in front of him, only to click some keys behind a blur of tears.

Miraculously there was a ringing sound, once.

Jehan’s voice sounded far away in Enjolras’s ears.

“Grantaire?”

All Enjolras could get out was a shaking sob that might have sounded like a no.

“Enjolras? What happened?”

“I don’t…,” and he couldn’t say it, couldn’t _think_. “We… I can’t –”

“Are you _hurt_?”

“Graze,” he managed to get out, “I’m fine, I’m fine … but –”

Jehan didn’t make him finish, he couldn’t have even if he wanted to. He almost dropped the phone trying to keep control over his shaking hands.

“Can you get away?”

 

Enjolras froze.

His breath stuck in his throat. He hadn’t been aware he was breathing.

“I’m not leaving him, I can’t, I’m not – I’m not leaving him.”

 

“Stay where you are,” Jehan cut in, tense, firm, “Stay exactly where you are.”

And Enjolras nodded even though Jehan couldn’t see him and his hands finally stopped listening to him. He dropped the phone, let go of the coat and leaned forward, cradling the still body in his arms not daring to meet still opened eyes.

He ran his fingers through dark curls, soft except where they were clumped by drying blood.

“Jehan will be here soon, did you hear R? It’s going to be alright, it’s going to be alright.”

Enjolras had have nightmares like this, he only hadn’t remembered until now.

 

Nightmares.

His fingers stilled.

Nightmares.

Dreams.

 _Of course_.

 

How could he not have realized? They couldn’t have been found, they were ghosts, no one knew who they were, no one could have told them where they were, it was absolutely unthinkable.  
And of course, the streets that looked so similar, the attacker, Babet showing up out of seemingly nowhere.  
_Of course_ , the feeling of being watched, being watched the entire time.

 

Nightmare.

 

“We’re safe, R, do you hear me? It’s just a dream, you’re alright, it’s going to be alright.”

Enjolras pulled Grantaire’s body closer, closer and reached for his blood drenched coat, pulled the hourglass out of the pocket, the edges that were so familiar digging into his skin.

“It’s alright, see, it’s just a –”

He raised the hourglass to his eyes and the sand ran down.

Down.

Steadily down.

 

And the world stopped.

 

Enjolras could feel it slipping from his fingers, the hourglass, everything, every single thing he had ever held on to and then the world, motionless and mute, went black.

And it was a blessing.

His last thought was filled with gratefulness until –

 

“You need to open your eyes Enjolras, open your eyes!”

 

The next thing he felt was a flat hand colliding with the side of his face and his eyes snapped open to a world spinning, moving, screaming no, no, no and Bossuet’s wide-eyed face.

And then he realized he didn’t feel anything in his hands, his hands were empty and he wanted, _had to_ turn around, _Grantaire_ , his mind screamed, but Bossuet grabbed his arms, pulled him to his chest embracing him with so much more strength.

“I have to, I need –” Enjolras wasn’t even sure if he only heard the voice that seemed to be his own inside his head.

“You can’t  _do_ anything Enjolras. There’s nothing you can do.” And Bossuet’s voice was real and breaking.

“I can’t leave him, I can’t –”

“I know, I know.” There was a hand running though his hair but Enjolras didn’t really feel it. “But you will be dead if you stay here, all of us will be, we need to go,” Bossuet whispered into his hair but Enjolras didn’t really hear him.

“I won’t leave him, I can’t leave him.”

“You have to, Enjolras. Jehan is going to take care of him, they will, they always do, they always take care. You’re hurt. You have to stand up. Can you stand up? Enjolras?”

 

Everything inside Enjolras constricted at the words, there was no breath anymore, he wasn’t sure if his heart was still beating, he didn’t move. He knew he was trembling, shaking violently but he couldn’t, he couldn’t –

 

One of Bossuet’s hands disappeared but the other held him close.

“Yes, I found him,” the other man said most likely into a phone, “He’s in shock Jehan, he… I –,” then is voice broke into a sob and Enjolras wanted to cry but all he could do was take in a sharp breath that made his insides burn.

Bossuet’s hand was back on his shoulder and he whispered, “They’re going to get us, they’ll be here soon, just breathe.” He continued talking even though Enjolras couldn’t make out the words anymore, maybe he started breathing again, he didn’t know, his mind was white and screaming, images of blood and darkness being drowned out by a pain that had nothing to do with his arm.

 

And then, later, he didn’t know how much later, there was a hand under his chin, steady and gentle, and the first thing breaking through the white noise in Enjolras’s head was Courfeyrac’s soft, unwavering voice.

“Stand up,” he said, nothing more, and Enjolras didn’t know how but he did.

Courfeyrac never looked away, never let go of him as he tried to stand on trembling legs and then larger hands wrapped around Enjolras’s arms and Combeferre held him up, kept him from falling and Enjolras let himself pushed, by the worry and fear in his best friends’ eyes, into a van.

He saw Bossuet falling into Cosette’s arms, stammering barely coherent words that he needed to call Joly, he saw Feuilly, Bahorel and Marius and Jehan but everything seemed detached, unreal, too slow.

 

When he got pushed gently to sit down with his back leaning against the wall of the van Enjolras closed his eyes.

 

He slept and he didn’t even notice he did.

He didn’t dream.

He woke up and he didn’t cry.

His mind wasn’t screaming at him. It was quiet. Empty.

 

“Where are we going?” were the first words he said.

“Albany,” someone answered.

Maybe it was Bahorel.

“Informant… or traitor, we don’t know…,” someone else whispered.

Jehan probably.

Traitor resounded in Enjolras head, nagging at the back of his brain, then it was silent again.

 

He didn’t speak another word.

 

When they arrived not much later he knew that the plan was to take the next plane, probably to Chicago and then out.

Enjolras didn’t.

Combeferre grabbed his wrist with worry and sadness in his warm brown eyes, and pity. When Enjolras looked back at him he didn’t try to convince him to come with them.

 

His feet, his hands, his mouth worked on autopilot as he got into a taxi to the main station, got onto the next train.

 

His hands started shaking again when there was the sudden image in his head of Grantaire as they had first met. Smiling mockingly, light in blue and green eyes. _Crystal clear chief_.

Just like that.

Enjolras pushed down every single thought, every feeling until he was just staring out of the window as the landscape flashed past.

 

His hands were steady when he arrived in Montreal.

 

The house was nice, not too big. Suburban with a garden and hedges and glass fronts on the higher floor. White flowers and wooden mailbox. He had a hard time imagining either Montparnasse or Jehan staying there. Too ordinary. Too average.

The key was under the left window still and easily opened the door.

Enjolras stepped inside.

Sunlight bathed the living room in warmth.

And Enjolras waited and waited until the sun started to set and it was clear that no one was there, and no one was going to come and he couldn’t deny his own stupid naivety anymore.

Traitor.  
  
He felt like one as well, with how stupid, how stupid and trusting he had been, all of them had been and he thought of the levity, the desperate belief in goodness that had cost Grantaire’s life.

 

When the sun had set Enjolras finally let his heart break.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY


	22. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC I/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed there’s a definite chapter count now which means, yes, I do have a plan! Surprise! I wasn’t sure about who should narrate the last part because I felt like Enjolras, well, needed a break so there are going to be multiple points of views, I hope that works for you. So enjoy this first chapter of the last part, thank you all for sticking around, reading, leaving kudos and comments, you’re literally amazing.♥

 

Part IV.

 

\- Les Amis de l’ABC –

 

 

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

Victor Hugo

 

***

 

I/VII

-Courfeyrac-

 

***

 

  _1 year later  
_

 

B.U.E.N.O.S. A.I.R.E.S. – A.R.G.E.N.T.I.N.A.

 

 

Courfeyrac didn’t know when ‘worried’ had become the normal way he looked at Enjolras.

 

It wasn’t like he had never worried about Enjolras before, of course he had, either because he worked too much or risked too much, thought too much and contemplated too little. It wasn’t inevitable to look at Enjolras with worry when knowing him for over ten years, closer to twenty already.

He had looked at him differently too, smiling, amused, exasperated and, most of all, fond.

A week after that night back in New York – one might call it fateful but even that sounded too insignificant in Courfeyrac’s ears – Enjolras had shown up in Paris, distant, face blank and with enough ruthless energy to last three life times.

 

Courfeyrac had looked at him, worried, and sometimes he felt like he hadn’t stopped ever since.

 

By then it had been more than obvious that Montparnasse had sold them out, no other possibility made any sense and furthermore the forger had vanished from the face of the earth. Courfeyrac was certain that should he ever show up again Enjolras would kill him on spot.

He didn’t know who Enjolras blamed more for what had happened, the other man or himself.

Courfeyrac didn’t blame him. Blame and fault, he didn't like the words that sounded so much like hatred, grieve and finality.

He  _had_ grieved because he had lost a friend and he  _still_ grieved because it felt too much like he was loosing another one.

He knew Enjolras like the back of his hand but with every day that passed he was distancing himself further and further from everyone around him.

And Courfeyrac worried.

 

“Are you going to come outside or to you want to keep standing there and stare at me all night?” Enjolras asked without turning around.

 

Well, Courfeyrac knew fairly well the understanding did not only go one way.

 

It was late in the evening, not midnight yet but almost.

Enjolras stood on the balcony of their hotel room, cigarette dangling from his fingers. He had taken to smoking more frequently lately despite Combeferre’s furrowed brows and Joly’s gentle protests.

They had spent most time of the last year working closely, relentlessly with Jehan and their team what also meant that they had spent much more time with each other.

Jehan was absent most of the time though and Courfeyrac knew that they blamed themselves as well.

In general Enjolras tried to avoid everyone as well but it was worst with Joly and Bossuet, if consciously or not, Courfeyrac wasn’t sure. Both men never said anything and they didn’t have to. The barely contained sadness and fond compassion in their eyes when they looked at Enjolras was enough.

 

“My back can’t be that interesting,” Enjolras added dryly.

 

Courfeyrac pushed away from the doorframe he had leaned against. “Oh you have a  _very_ interesting backside, don’t sell yourself short,” he joked half-heartedly and Enjolras laughed. It was a laugh that couldn’t have been called like that if it wasn’t for the slight upturn of his lips in the soft glow of the cigarette and the lights of the city.

It was like he didn’t allow himself to laugh anymore and the thought made Courfeyrac’s heart clench painfully.

He stepped up next to Enjolras who was leaning on the railing and looked silently over the city.

 

“It’s fucking hot,” Courfeyrac mumbled after a while, the silence making him restless and fidgety. Also, it was really, really warm. Humid southern hemisphere summer.

 

Enjolras raised a dismissive eyebrow.

Courfeyrac tried his hardest to glare at him even though he was certain he failed miserably. “What? Just because my genes are supposed to be used to hot summers and I grew up in the south of France doesn’t mean that I have to like sweating 24/7. It ruins my hair. Give me a Parisian winter and I’d take it over this forecourt of hell any time.”

Enjolras not-laugh sounded through the night once more before he took another drag of his cigarette, the motion effortlessly elegant yet somehow unnatural.

Courfeyrac couldn’t stop his fingers from nervously tapping on the railing of the balcony.

“You’re not sleeping.”

He didn’t ask a question because it would only give Enjolras the opportunity to reply something vague that really didn’t answer anything and didn’t bring them a single step further.

A simple fact was more like a challenge, to stay silent or explain, and Enjolras never backed down. It was a strategy perfected over the years, simple yet effective.

Still Courfeyrac waited tensely and only relaxed when the other man eventually sighed.

“There hasn’t been any news from Jehan for weeks,” Enjolras said, eyes firmly set on a point on the horizon, staring resolutely ahead. “And honestly, there hasn’t been any real development for months, has it? It’s like we’re trying to find the needle in the haystack and we’re  getting absolutely nowhere.”

 

His voice stayed carefully even but Courfeyrac didn’t miss the way the other man’s fingers trembled as he stubbed out the cigarette more forcefully than necessary.

 

The worst thing was that he couldn’t even argue with that.

 

After New York Patron-Minette had disappeared as well.

There had been a few raids that they only attributed to the group because Jehan was certain that no one of the other Somnacin user was responsible but it was never anything significant and never anything that could help them to track Patron-Minette or the Thénardiers concretely, no familiar faces around the crime scenes or marks and as much as Jehan was trying to get a hold of them otherwise, they all knew that unless they wanted to be found it was only grasping at straws until the group needed more Somnacin to continue whatever they were doing.

On the other hand there was the constant possibility that Patron-Minette could be coming for their team again.

No one knew how much Montparnasse had actually told them, if it had only been about there stay in New York or more, like names, faces, plans.

No one knew if Patron-Minette and the Thenardiers either hadn’t caught up with them again because they didn’t have enough information or if they simply concentrated on something else entirely, something more important.

During the last year Courfeyrac had stopped considering Enjolras, Feuilly, Combeferre, Marius and himself as a team separate from Jehan and the rest.

They had worked together, had tracked supposed marks without enlightening success, had been guarding and narrowing down potential ones but there hadn’t been complications or attacks or anything, really.

 

It was quiet,  _too_ quiet.

Courfeyrac had never liked the quiet.

 

“You know Jehan is trying as best as they can. Only because they haven’t gotten in touch for a few weeks doesn’t mean that they don’t. ”

Enjolras huffed coldly. “Yeah well, maybe they should try harder then.”

Courfeyrac didn’t flinch despite the sharp tone. He reached out and, even though he had to stand on his tiptoes, grabbed Enjolras’s chin and turned his face so he was looking at Courfeyrac.

“Don’t be cruel,” he said and Enjolras cast down his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Courfeyrac tipped his chin back up and smiled ignoring yet another painful twist of his heart at his friend’s sorrow that he desperately tried to keep hidden. He nodded and let go of Enjolras’s face but not before he brushed a stray curl from his forehead gently.

“You know Jehan is doing everything they can,” he repeated, more softly, “And they care. Just as much as –”

“Don’t,” Enjolras cut him off and Courfeyrac did flinch this time because his voice wasn’t cold or sharp but almost broke at the single word.

Enjolras turned away immediately instead of meeting the architect’s eyes. He fumbled for another cigarette in his pocket and managed to light it after three tries with slightly trembling hands.

Courfeyrac wondered if it helped.

Surprisingly Enjolras broke the silence first, after blowing a heavy cloud of smoke into the air.

“It’s been a year,” he said and it was more of a whisper, as if he wasn’t really talking to Courfeyrac but himself. “Eight days ago it’s been a year.”

“I am sorry,” was all Courfeyrac could answer and he felt like he had seldom meant something so much.

“I know.” Enjolras smile was a grimace. “Everyone is so _incredibly_ sorry.”

Courfeyrac bit down onto his lip. The other man stared ahead with his cigarette and his blond hair plastered to his head and Courfeyrac breathed in, out.

“You’re doing us injustice, Enjolras. You're not the only one who cared for Grantaire.” Despite the pang of guilt in his chest when Enjolras visibly flinched at the mention of Grantaire’s name Courfeyrac kept his voice firm when he continued. “We all cared for him, deeply, no matter if we only knew him for two years, or ten years. We wouldn’t be here where we are now if we didn’t. I’ve been watching you grieving for the last year and do you really think I wouldn’t try to stop you if he wasn’t worth every second of it? You’re my best friend and you’re _hurting_ and I am so,  _so_ sorry that you’re hurting  _every single day_ and I am not going to stop you from grieving if you’re not ready.

But I am not going to stand useless to the side while you drown yourself in guilt and hatred and if the only way to give you any kind of closure is bringing down those responsible for his death then we won’t stop until we did. This isn’t  _over_ for us Enjolras, for me, for Ferre and everyone who cares about you, for as long as I can look at you again and know that one day my best friend going to be okay.”

 

Enjolras still hadn’t turned around but he didn’t need to, the way he was blinking rapidly, lips pressed tightly together told Courfeyrac everything he needed to know.

 

They have had more than one conversation similar to this in the last year but for some reason it felt like a milestone, in whatever direction.

 

“I don’t know if I –” Enjolras started, bit his lip and stopped. He took a deep breath, cigarette in his hand forgotten. “It might take a while,” he said and he then laughed.

It sounded chocked and hysterical but just enough like an actual laugh that Courfeyrac’s heart cracked a little.

Before he could speak up, say that it was  _okay,_ that it didn’t matter how long it took, months or years or decades, Enjolras continued and Courfeyrac was too surprised to stop him.

“I know it’s like… a ridiculous cliché,” he began and every trace of a smile vanished, “but the first thing I thought after I accepted … what had happened –” he didn’t say ‘after his death’ and Courfeyrac knew it was because he was never going to just accept that – “was that I never… I never told him how I really felt.” He didn’t say ‘that I loved him’ and Courfeyrac wasn’t sure if he ever would. But he didn’t need to.

 

“I’m sure he knew.”

 

“I’m not. I should have told him. The moment I knew I should have told him. I thought we’d have… time.”

Instead of replying Courfeyrac placed a hand gently on Enjolras’s forearm. The other man startled at the contact as if he had forgotten that Courfeyrac was there for a second. It took a moment before his eyes focused but then he didn’t look away.

“It might take a while,” he said, whispered, again and Courfeyrac squeezed his arm.

 

They stood like that in the wet heat and listened to the sound of cars and the city.

 

It’s okay, Courfeyrac didn’t say. “Come back inside. We wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.” And the twitch of Enjolras’s mouth could have almost been a smile.

The other man stubbed out his cigarette and followed Courfeyrac inside but before he could make his way to his own room Courfeyrac grabbed his hand pulling him towards the other one firmly enough to show he didn’t accept any objection.

 

He quietly opened the door, careful not to wake up Combeferre who was lying on the bed, eyes closed, stretched out in boxer shorts and a t-shirt with a giant face of Nicola Tesla on it. His hair was a mess and he was mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like the element song. God, Courfeyrac loved him so much.

 

He turned to Enjolras who was standing in the room with _skinny jeans_ and shook his head fondly.

“Take off your pants, it’s freaking hot in here,” Courfeyrac whispered nonchalantly and Enjolras rolled his eyes. 

After he followed his instructions Courfeyrac pulled him down onto the bed snuggling close against the taller man’s back. Combeferre turned around in his sleep throwing an arm around Enjolras in the middle, his hand grazing Courfeyrac’s waist.

Their breathing slowed down matching Combeferre’s calm, steady rhythm and Courfeyrac had almost fallen asleep when he heard Enjolras quietly say, “I thought it was a dream.”

A hitched breath sounded sharply in the silence but he continued even though his voice was shaking, “It didn’t make sense. That they found us so quickly, that they caught up with us. I felt like being watched the whole time and everything looked so similar and I was  _so sure_ it was a dream.”

And then, so quiet Courfeyrac almost missed it, “It wasn’t.”

He felt the hand on his waist tighten, drawing them closer together.

Courfeyrac buried his face in Enjolras neck, holding him close until the other man’s breathing evened out.

 

None of them slept well these days. But Enjolras never cried.

 

***


	23. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC II/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Throws some Courferre at you to make up for the angst*

 

  
II/VII

 

-Combeferre-

 

***

 

Unfortunately, Combeferre was a light sleeper. So when a phone started ringing insensitively loud Courfeyrac only turned around mumbling something into his pillow and Combeferre was left blindly feeling for the cruel object.

He half-consciously noticed Enjolras wasn’t there anymore but for the moment his primary focus was on getting the goddamn noise to stop.

His fingers found the phone on the nightstand on Courfeyrac’s side of the bed which logically meant it was Courfeyrac’s phone but he didn’t really care so he answered anyway.

 

“Yes?”

“Combeferre, here’s Jehan.”

 

Combeferre was awake immediately. He sat up, one hand instantly shaking Courfeyrac awake who groaned and blinked sleepily, and urgently asked, “Jehan? What happened? Do you have news?”

Just like that Courfeyrac opened his eyes in alarm, sitting up. His eyes were questioning and Combeferre could only helplessly shrug.

“Yes, in fact I do. We –”

“Wait a second, Courf is awake, let me put you on speaker.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. As soon as he had taken the phone from his ear Courfeyrac grabbed his hand to pull the phone closer. “Jehan? What happened?”

“Cosette found Patron-Minette.”

Combeferre could hear a sharp intake of breath like his own from his right.

“Where?” Courfeyrac asked his whole body tensing next to Combeferre.

 

“Here in Paris.”

 

“Why would they come to Paris of all places?” Combeferre was surprised his voice stayed even remotely call. He didn’t feel calm. “When they are trying to hide it’s literally the worst place they could go to.”

“We don’t know what they’re planning. Cosette only just informed me. Maybe they want to be found, maybe it’s a trap but it’s the closest we got in over year,” Jehan said. “It’s our best, maybe _only_ chance and I won’t let them get away. Not this time.”

The grip around Combeferre’s hand tightened. “None of us will,” Courfeyrac said decidedly. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yes I do. I need you here.”

“We will be.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. The next time Jehan’s voice sounded through the phone it sounded more hesitant. “But first I need you to pick up… something for me.”

Combeferre frowned and exchanged a look with Courfeyrac mirroring his expression.

“What is it?” the other man asked warily.

“Something important.”

Another shared glance. Courfeyrac’s eyes narrowed. Combeferre couldn’t help but feel equally sceptical of the following but hadn’t expected what Jehan said next in year.

 

“From Montreal.”

 

“Are you out of your goddamn –”

Luckily Combeferre had the presence of mind to press a hand over Courfeyrac’s mouth receiving a betrayed look from the architect that disappeared when Combeferre nodded at the direction of the door. Enjolras might not be in the room but it was still better if they didn't have to explain this to him out of the blue. Preferably they wouldn't have to explain it to him at all. 

“Jehan,” Combeferre tried more calmly, “you can’t send… _us_ to Montreal.”

He wondered when Enjolras name had become the elephant in the room. It felt like forever. Courfeyrac nodded earnestly and Combeferre took his hand from his mouth. The other man took it and intertwined their fingers.

Enjolras will be fine,” Jehan said tensely and Combeferre for once regretted taking Courfeyrac’s hand because now he had lost the opportunity to stop him from talking if necessary.

“Oh _really_ ,” he sneered and Combeferre winced. “You know how he is, how he’s been the whole last _year._ He’s a mess.” Well, he wasn’t _wrong._

There was another long pause on the other end of the line.

Then, “Do you trust me?”

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes, huffed but it sounded resigned. Combeferre knew how he felt. They couldn’t change what had happened but snapping and accusing didn’t make things better.

“Of course,” Combeferre said because it was as easy as that.

He trusted Jehan with his life just as much as Courfeyrac did and they were all aware of it.

“It will be alright, I promise,” they said softly, “Tell Enjolras exactly what I said, that I need you to go to Montreal to retrieve something of uttermost importance. And I trust you to bring it ho- here safely.”

“How are we supposed to do that if you’re not telling us what it is?” Combeferre asked and Jehan paused before replying “I’m going to send someone of my team to meet you there.”

Combeferre couldn’t help but sigh. “We trust you Jehan but you do realize how nebulous all of this sounds right?”

“I know and I’m sorry but I promise I wouldn’t make you do this if there was anyone else who could.”

The hand in Combeferre’s tightened its grip around his. Courfeyrac looked determined and tired at once and still, he was the most beautiful person Combeferre had ever seen. He didn’t want to look away. Sometimes he thought everything might be alright if he just kept looking at Courfeyrac and never stopped.

“We will be in Montreal,” the other man said. “And we’ll be in Paris.”

“Thank you.”

“Jehan?”

“Yes?”

“You better have a goddamn good reason for this, you hear me?” It sounded far too tired to be a threat. Combeferre traced a circle on the back of Courfeyrac’s hand with his thumb and stayed quiet.

“I do, believe me,” Jehan’s voice was gentle. Combeferre didn’t doubt they knew times weren’t simple. Times weren’t simple for all of them. “I’m sending you a time and place and let Joly take care of your flights.”

They said their goodbyes after that, not much more to say and when Combeferre hung up, for some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling of having _overlooked_ something.

 

 

***

 

_2 days later_

M.O.N.T.R.E.A.L. – C.A.N.A.D.A.

 

***

 

 

When they arrived in Montreal it was raining.

The sky looked like a washed out, worn out grey sweater and for some reason it felt oddly appropriate.

Or perhaps not _that_ oddly, Combeferre thought, because for a while, a long while now, it had been like there was a constant raincloud over Enjolras’s head that no one could see but everyone could feel so a rainy day really just made it all the more obvious.

Combeferre was sure that, had anyone been able to actually see that cloud right then it wouldn’t just be a drizzling, cold rain but a full blown storm even though Enjolras’s face didn’t show anything emotion except for a maybe slightly worrying lack of sleep and an overall testiness at the weather.  
The lack of expression on his face still didn’t mean Combeferre wasn’t aware of the actual turmoil that his friend carefully kept bottled up and the knowledge only made the sky seem even bleaker.

Courfeyrac was like a beacon of colours hopping over puddles with the bright yellow, flamingo patterned umbrella that had been a gift from Joly and red skinny jeans, always trying to keep up a smile even if it was just as tired, as worried and Combeferre loved him for that.

 

Loved him so much that sometimes the heart in his chest ached.

 

They were silent as they walked.

Enjolras hadn’t said much after Courfeyrac had told him about Jehan’s cryptic phone call. His only reaction had been a huff and a muttered, “What are we now? A parcel service?”

If he had broken down, shocked, upset,  _anything_ it couldn’t have been worse.

All three of them knew he wasn’t well.

The last time Enjolras had been in Montreal Grantaire had died in his arms mere hours ago and Montparnasse, the only out, the only possible escape for him in this situation had turned out to be a traitor.

No, Combeferre didn’t envy Enjolras for having to come back and kind of wanted to hate Jehan for making him do it anyway, only that he didn’t because Jehan wouldn’t hurt Enjolras who they all knew had suffered enough even more if it wasn’t necessary.

Maybe it was foolish to trust them so unconditionally but Combeferre did, like he trusted all of his friends.

 

And yet there still was the odd, lingering feeling like searching for something you had surely seen only minutes ago but not being able to find it. There was _somthing_ but he couldn't figure out what it was. 

 

So he looked around, noticed, observed like he always did where Courfeyrac would have chosen the more confrontational route and Enjolras went straight ahead, head high, eyes focused, rain drenching his hair.

“I think it’s that one over there,” Courfeyrac interrupted the brooding silence, pointing at a narrow house with a café tugged into the ground floor that was supposed to be their rendezvous point. He purposefully walked ahead, Combeferre and Enjolras following after him.

“Finally,” Enjolras muttered under his breath sending a disgusted look at the grey sky and Combeferre was almost surprised that it didn’t immediately stop raining at the force of the glare.

Courfeyrac closed the umbrella and opened the door for them and Combeferre instantly felt better embraced by warmth and the smell of coffee.

 

The café was tiny with a counter to the right and four groups of comfortable looking armchairs around small tables. The walls were full of pictures, frames, old posters and two small bookshelves next to the door. Combeferre could see why Jehan had picked the place as a meeting point. With its cosy, warm atmosphere it basically advertised inconspicuous- and harmlessness.

It was also empty except for a woman behind the counter, with dark skin and dark ringlets. She had just stepped out of a door behind the counter that probably let to a kitchen or some sorts because she was holding a try full of muffins.

Combeferre heard her calling out, “Yes, yes, take your break chérie,” as they entered, then she turned to them. Her nametag read ‘Floréal’ in an elegant cursive.

“Hello there, what can I get you?” she asked friendly and Courfeyrac smiled at her in return.

“Something to warm up would be absolutely amazing because I kind of can’t feel my fingers anymore. Wait –” he turned to Combeferre taking his hands and grinned. “Much better. Now, we’d like to have two coffees, one black, one with milk and for me a cinnamon mochaccino with extra whipped cream please.”

The woman laughed and Combeferre couldn’t help but smile. It felt too good to smile. He felt like no one was smiling enough anymore.

“Sure. You want these to go?”

“Oh no, we’ll sit down,” Courfeyrac hastened to answer already pulling off his scarf. “We’re waiting for someone and I am so not going to set another foot out there unless I have to.”

Out of the corner of his eye Combeferre saw her smile falter just a little but it was over quickly. Courfeyrac was too busy getting out of his jacket and Enjolras was already looking for the strategically best placed table so they hadn’t noticed. Maybe he had only imagined it. No wonder one was paranoid these days.

The barista flashed them another smile. “I’ll bring it over to you in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Courfeyrac said and pulled Combeferre with him as they followed Enjolras to the table in the right corner in the back.

They sat down, what was more a sinking into the cushions of the armchairs, and Combeferre reflexively relaxed. Enjolras silently stared out of the window and onto the street while Courfeyrac was fidgeting, drumming with his fingers on the table top until Combeferre gently reached out for one of his hands intertwining their fingers under the table, a grounding presence, a silent ‘It’s going to be alright.’

Courfeyrac smiled, freckles on his cheeks dancing and Combeferre didn’t want to look away. He never really wanted to, honestly.

 

A tray was set down next to him on the table, startling him out of his thoughts.

Floréal grinned at them. “You’re adorable,” she stated decidedly and Combeferre could feel his cheeks warm up while Courfeyrac just grinned back winking as he took his cup.

She placed the coffee with milk in front of Combeferre without having to ask if it was meant for him and another cup with cream, sprinkles and something that was certainly not black coffee in front of Enjolras.

He stared at her disbelievingly.

She grinned. “Chin up golden boy, _this_ is exactly what you need to get rid of that scowl of yours. I’ve been doing this for a while, I know how it works, believe me.”

Enjolras scrutinized the cup sceptically. For a moment he looked like he wanted to protest but then he carefully taking a small sip. He looked up again, surprised. “It’s good.”

She huffed. “Of course it is.”

Combeferre knew that the smile spreading over Enjolras’s face, no matter how small, was genuine. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she stopped him with a wave of her hand. “I can’t stand frowny faces. My co-worker, I haven’t seen him smile once in the whole year he’s been working here, believe me. It’s sad. I don’t like sad people so really, I’m only doing myself a favour.” And with that she turned around leaving Enjolras staring at his cup in complete bewilderment.

“Well, that was nice of her,” Courfeyrac said with a shrug.

Before they could drift off into silence again the architect leaned over his cup conspiratorially. “Honestly, not that I don’t like a good mochaccino and cute little cafés but I’m not exactly sure like what’s the use of this? I mean I’m glad _something_ is happening but really, what’s Jehan’s plan here?” He quickly glanced at Combeferre.

A minimal nod.

_Cue to you._

“I’m fairly certain they’re done sitting back and waiting,” Combeferre murmured absentmindedly, already focusing on observing Floréal again who was arranging pastries humming something under her breath with a small smile.

That was the way it went. Courfeyrac tried to stop Enjolras from falling to deep into his thoughts, distracting him, making him talk and making sure he was okay while Combeferre took care of everything around.

It was a system they hadn’t only established over the last year but since they were teenagers. Words weren’t necessary anymore, just a look, a small movement.

“Well, that’s pretty obvious and about time if you ask me,” Courfeyrac continued the successfully set in motion conversation, “but what exactly is that supposed to mean? They were incredibly cryptic.”

Enjolras huffed. “Aren’t they always?”

“Well…yeah. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The blonde man absentmindedly stared into his cup. “Unfortunately they’re the only chance we got.”

“Fortunately,” Combeferre said softly but insistent, “we have them.”

Enjolras sighed. “Yeah. Fortunately.” He sat up a little when Floréal approached their table with another tray. Combeferre frowned but she only smiled, a twinkle in her eye.

She put three small plates with something that looked like apple pie in front of them. “On the house.”

Enjolras politely tried to say, “Oh, that’s not necessary,” at the same moment as Courfeyrac exclaimed, “Amazing!”

Floréal just laughed, insisting firmly but friendly on them eating the cake and shoved the plate closer to Enjolras.

 

Combeferre let the noises wash over him, his gaze wandered back to the counter instinctively just as the door opened. A tall, slightly crouched figure in a hooded jacket slid past the counter then disappeared through the back door. The whole thing happened within mere seconds.

 

Combeferre blinked.

 

Courfeyrac and Enjolras were still busy profoundly thanking Floréal woman for the cake and hadn’t noticed anything. Before she left she glanced at Combeferre who hadn’t said a word and for some reason she looked approving.

“This. Is  _so_ good,” Courfeyrac practically moaned with half his mouth full of cake. “I am so going to try and make this.”

Enjolras scoffed. “Really? Because if I recall correctly you don’t have the cooking skills  _or_ you know, a kitchen.”

“I’m sure Jehan would let me use one of their labs.”

“The fact that you equal a lab with a kitchen should already be alarming.”

“Come on, I’m adaptive. Besides, aren’t chemists constantly doing things with baking soda and stuff too?”

“I’m fairly certain they don’t.”

“And since when are you a chemist? Ferre, back me up here!”

“What?”

Floréal had went back to the counter, quickly taking a look inside the back room just to close the door again and was now rummaging in one of the drawers.

Combeferre looked up into Courfeyrac’s slightly concerned face.

“Everything alright?”

“Yes sure, I was just… lost in thoughts for a moment.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow but Combeferre shook his head reassuringly. Courfeyrac shrugged seemingly unfazed. “You don’t want your cake?”

Combeferre regarded his untouched piece of cake and after a moment of consideration shoved it over to Courfeyrac. “No, it's got raisins in it, you can have it.” He stood up and grabbed his cup. “I’m going to get a refill.”

The glance he exchanged with Courfeyrac was a wordless, ‘Distract him.’

The architect shrugged again. “Your loss.” Then, “Hey Enjy, want to share?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes at the nickname and frowned. “You’re being awfully nice.”

“Well, you’re my _other_ best friend and I have to find a way to keep you around, right? And, correct me if I’m wrong, but sexual favours aren’t really working with you.”

Combeferre didn’t need to see Enjolras’s face, he could perfectly imagine the scandalized expression, the sound the other man made was enough. Courfeyrac was probably smirking.

 

Combeferre suppressed a chuckle.

 

He walked over to the counter where Floréal looked up and even though her smile was friendly she did seem more tense than before.

“Hey, everything alright?”

“Sure.” He put on a hopefully charming smile “I was just wondering if I could get a refill?”

“Of course.”

Combeferre stayed where he was leaning on the counter as she turned to the coffee machine.

“Also this may sound weird but the man who just –”

 

He was cut off by a loud crash in the other room followed by the backdoor flying open, the man in question stepping out backwards, hand raised, hood fallen down. His voice, stance, hair were undoubtedly, terribly familiar.

“Jesus Christ, alright! You know I thought you might appreciate a little heads up!” he shouted, then turned around, black eyes meeting Combeferre’s over the counter.

 

The first thought coming to his mind was, simply, forcefully, ‘God dammit.’

 

Montparnasse’s furrowed, annoyed expression changed instantly. “Well,” he said dryly, “You’re a _tad_ too early.”

 

He looked all but resigned when Enjolras grabbed him by the collar of his coat, crashing him into wall and yes, in retrospect Combeferre should have seen that coming.

In retrospect he also wasn’t surprised when Floréal staggered back from the coffee machine, ripped open a draw and would have pulled out a gun if Combeferre hadn’t been quicker, rounding the counter to grab her hand. He just hoped that his headshake unmistakeably conveyed, ‘You don’t want to get involved in this.’

But, in retrospect, he was however surprised Enjolras hadn’t shot Montparnasse already, only pressed him against the wall, arm against his throat and gun against his temple.

Combeferre quickly glanced over at Courfeyrac who had his gun out but only half-raised, wide-eyed but not panicked, just shocked.

“Wait,” Montparnasse chocked out, breathing heavily, “Wait, I can explain.”

Combeferre and Courfeyrac winced at the same time.

Enjolras looked positively murderous. “Give me one, _one_ good reason why I shouldn’t kill you here and now.”

Montparnasse coughed and there might have been a flash of fear in his black eyes but then his gaze flickered over Enjolras’s shoulder, determinedly at the back door.

“You might want to help with that?”

Combeferre followed his gaze and at once everything, _everything_ clicked into place. 

 

Grantaire looked pale as a sheet, not more alive than a ghost.

Combeferre wondered for an absurd moment if he was.

 

Enjolras confused expression ebbed away, leaving his face blank, pale when he turned around.

 

***

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... have a little cliffhanger? But, just so you don't think I'm a completely horrible person, I wanted you to know that I actually wrote another chapter that I originally planned on putting in front of this chapter but in the end I felt like it kind of would have killed the suspense BUT I really didn't want to keep it from you so for those who want to read it I put it up as some sort of Bonus chapter on [my tumblr](http://vintage-jehan.tumblr.com/post/140038536524/heres-a-not-so-little-bonus-chapter-i-wrote-for).


	24. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC III/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I’m not picking the POVs by thinking, ‘Huh, who would make this the most emotionally devastating?’. Well, not deliberately, I guess. But hey, (kind of) quick update. Hope you enjoy the chapter. ♥

 

 

III/VII

 

-Enjolras-

 

***

 

“You might want to help with that?”

The words soaked through the overwhelming vision of red, the pulse beating in his ears and the fundamental urge to run a bullet through the head of the man in front of him, or maybe not the head, maybe somewhere else where death would come slower. Drag it out. Make it _hurt_.

Maybe he would have been appalled by the feeling in any other situation but right then it just felt _right._

That was until Enjolras managed to process the words, string their meaning together and confusion ran a crack through the red.

Montparnasse didn’t look at him, he looked over his shoulder and past Enjolras and not to avoid his eyes. The realization that the words _weren't_ directed at him took several seconds too long.

The world came back in colour and objects and people, the gun in his hand, solid, held so tightly it hurt, pressed against the pale skin of Montparnasse’s temple, the other man's breath laboured against Enjolras’s arm. And dark eyes not looking at him but _over his shoulder._

What had he asked for? A reason not to kill him?

You might want to help with that?

What sort of reason was that supposed to….

 

Something in Enjolras’s mind slithered to a stop.

 

Impossible.

 

Montparnasse’s eyes flickered back to Enjolras's for just a second but whatever he saw seemed to make him relax, just a fraction. Enjolras could feel every single one of his movements. The other man raised his chin, a minimal jerk, a silent request.

Enjolras turned around like in trance, further, further and further.

 

Until he couldn’t move even if he had wanted to.

 

He knew that this wasn’t a dream. He was very, very much awake. He had checked after getting off the plane. He regularly checked lately, three, four times a day, just to be sure.

Theoretically, he knew what he was seeing.

Theoretically, Enjolras  _knew_ that Grantaire was standing there, about three feet away from him, not looking at him but looking at the ground, dark hair shorter than the last time Enjolras had seen him, shorter and not drenched with blood and dirt.

Theoretically, he knew that the long, strong fingers nervously fidgeting, picking at skin too pale, unhealthily pale, _weren’t_ lifeless and cold.

 

In practice, his mind was screaming at him, loudly, ‘impossible, impossible, impossible’ as if it could make the pain less when it turned out to be just that.

It was like every last cautious, rational cell in his body tried to drown, pull back the hope, the impossible hope that was dwelling up inside him.

And all the while Enjolras stared, stared and stared and wished the world would stop right then.

 

It didn’t.

 

“Care to let go of me? I’m kind of suffocating here,” Montparnasse chocked out and Enjolras mechanically lowered the gun, letting it hang uselessly at his side and didn’t care.

Montparnasse stumbled a few steps away from him, rubbing at his throat and coughed a few times. Then he straightened his coat turning to Courfeyrac next to him who was staring at the black-haired man wide-eyed with his gun raised half-way as if he still wasn’t sure what to do.

“Courf,” Montparnasse nodded and the architect blinked a few times before getting out, utterly shocked, “I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”

Montparnasse snorted inelegantly.

 

Enjolras did  _hear_ what they were saying but the sense of the words didn’t make it to his mind that had turned almost blissfully blank having stopped screaming, fighting, anything.

He might have kept standing there motionless, thoughtless like a statue for the rest of eternity if blue and green eyes hadn’t flickered up meeting his own for the fraction of a second and it was like someone had reached into his head ripping him back into the here and now.

A punch in the gut would have been more pleasant.

Or a bullet grazing his shoulder.

“You’re dead,” someone said and it took Enjolras a moment to register that it was his own voice speaking and it sounded so stupid, absolutely stupid because _obviously_ , he wasn’t and the realization hit Enjolras so hard he couldn’t breathe for a second.

Grantaire didn’t look up again, his lips fell open as if he wanted to say something but no words came out and Enjolras wanted to cry.

“Well, this is awkward,” Montparnasse murmured and probably everyone but Enjolras send him a death glare. Going by the yelp that followed Courfeyrac must have punched him.

Enjolras couldn’t have cared less.

“You died,” he managed to get out, more sure of his own voice, consciousness of his body, surroundings returning slowly. “I saw you die,” he said and he sounded like a broken record.

Grantaire looked like he wanted to cry as well and absurdly, Enjolras didn’t want him to cry while he still felt like crying himself without being able to even pinpoint the reason and wondering why he wasn’t already.

 

He didn’t know if he had expected a reply.

He hadn’t really expected to hear anything falling from those lips again or those eyes looking at him again for just a second. There hadn’t  _been_ an again in Enjolras mind when it came to Grantaire and it had taken a year trying to get used to it. It had been more of a pretending to get used to it because honestly he never really had.

For a moment he didn’t care that the words coming from Grantaire’s lips weren’t ‘I’m sorry.’ “I had to,” he said and his voice, quiet, careful, broken, so decidedly  _unlike_ Grantaire, was still the most beautiful sound Enjolras had ever heard.

And there was no anger, not  _yet,_ just a string of questions in his head. Why? How?

_Why?_

But he couldn’t move and he couldn’t speak or breathe or do anything but stare at Grantaire who was all these things, moving, speaking, breathing.

Enjolras’s heart was beating twice as fast and loudly in his chest.

“I’m not completely sure what’s going on,” Floréal interrupted the tangible silence, trying to sound firm but her voice was obviously shaking, “But I’d really appreciate it if we could all, _please_ , put away the guns?”

The voice of someone unknown to Enjolras seemed to do the trick because he suddenly realized again that they were standing in a café with guns somewhat pointing at each other in broad daylight where anyone could come in any moment.

Enjolras put the gun back into the pocket of his coat and for the very first time looked away from Grantaire.

The floor was dark, wooden and grained.

The walls were warmly yellow but not too brash.

Montparnasse showed up in his field of view and Enjolras looked at the man who looked back at him with dark, dark eyes and felt utterly lost.

Just a minute ago he had wanted to  _kill_ him, more than anything. He had thought about it every single day for more than year. It was painfully obvious that everything wasn’t as he had believed it to be for the last year. He had imagined pulling the trigger so many times and now…

He had no idea what to do.

“As much as I hate to disturb the natural proceedings of this reunion,” Montparnasse said dryly, “but we kind of have a plane to catch.  I’m just supposed to pick you up and bring you to Paris as fast as possible so we do have a schedule here. Floréal, darling, would you contact Jehan, tell them we're all good and well and on our way?”

Enjolras thought that maybe everyone was too shocked to do anything but do what he said.

 

They left, five men with awkward silence hanging between them that Enjolras didn’t really registered because the silence in his own head was too defeating to leave room for anything else.

Even Courfeyrac wasn’t saying anything, knowing when to be silent but his hand held on to Combeferre’s too tightly and the looks the two of them send Enjolras were too worried, too anxious.

Every step was like floating, light and unreal.

Was he supposed to be happy? Angry? Relieved?

He had hoped so many times … but then his head was only filled by a blankness, a low white noise. It wasn’t unpleasant… just there. Like his mind had decided to just shut down to make it easier, stop him from going crazy after all.

 

Enjolras absentmindedly ran his finger along the edge of the hour glass in his coat pocket.

 

Somehow he managed to get inside a cab, through airport control and inside a plane. It could have taken minutes or hours, in retrospective he couldn’t say  _how_ he managed but he did.

It was probably more due to Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s gentle pushes and pulls into the right direction rather than his own merit. He suspected that both of his friends tried to talk to him more than once. He didn’t know if he answered.

Probably not.

The plane started and when they were flying miles and miles up in the air Enjolras mind began to clear slowly, thankfully not crashing down at him all at once like the last time.

The last time.

 

Enjolras unbuckled his seat belt and stood up quietly. It was night outside and most of the people were asleep in uncomfortable positions squished onto their seats. The only light came from the guiding lines on the floor and the single lights where people were reading or doing whatever one did on a eight hours long  flight.

They were all seated in different rows, it was already risky enough to travel with five people.

Enjolras’s hand clenched into the fabric of his jacket.

 _Five_ people.

He took a deep breath and walked down the narrow aisle towards Grantaire whose eyes were closed but Enjolras knew how it looked like when someone was faking sleep. Black curls were covering the side of his face. He looked thinner.

 

Enjolras walked past him.

 

He kept going until he had reached Montparnasse who  _had been_ sleeping and regarded Enjolras with a death glare when he shook him awake. He didn’t wait for the other man to start protesting and nodded his head, clearly indicating to follow him.

He didn’t lock the door behind him when he went into the on-board toilet and didn’t have to wait for long before Montparnasse slipped inside staying the furthest away from Enjolras as possible in such a tight space, pressed against the door.

Enjolras didn’t object.

“Should I be afraid?” the black haired man asked dryly, a hint of mocking in his tone that Enjolras didn’t buy for a second.

“I don’t know, is there a reason you should be afraid?”

Montparnasse sighed and sacked back against the door, somehow still managing to look graceful while doing it. “Why is it you always end up talking to me when you really don’t want to talk to me at all?”

And Enjolras had no answer to that.

The other man sighed more heavily. “As much as I’m sure I make a quite efficient verbal punching bag for you in situations like these, you _are_ aware you don’t really want to talk to _me_ , are you?”

“Believe me,” Enjolras gritted out between his teeth, anger suddenly flaring up inside him. “I’m not  _completely_ inattentive.”

“You’re not inattentive.”

“Oh really? Because I obviously didn’t even realize someone I thought I saw  _dying_ didn’t really die.” He might have sounded slightly hysterical, voice rising, shaking and alright, scratch that. He definitely sounded hysterical. “Do you know what it feels like to wish something wasn’t real, knowing it can’t be but it is? Even though it makes no sense and you think and think and think you’re going crazy and sometimes you feel like you might have started to come around just to have the rug pulled from under your feet again and again? And that until you’re left with nothing, not even a fucking ground to stand on anymore. Do you know how that feels like?”

Montparnasse regarded him with a long, taxing look. “What do you think?” Enjolras couldn’t help but flinch at the coldness in his voice. “Of course I _know_. I’ve known since I was eight years old because for people like me,” – forgers – “that’s _life_. And I know it’s hard and I know it’s difficult and sometimes you wish nothing more than to just stop. But until you can do that, maybe, one day, you suck it up and get used to it. So you know what? You should be fucking glad you don’t have to.”

In the end his voice had drifted into something that was nothing but tired bitterness. Enjolras contemplated saying something consoling, apologizing for an absurd second but decided against it.

“I thought I did, get used to it I mean,” he admitted instead. “I tried for a whole year and I thought I did and then today happened and I just realized…”

“You never _really_ did,” Montparnasse finished his sentence and huffed. Then his expression turned incredibly serious. “Be  _glad_ you don’t have to. And if it’s the only good thing you can get out of this.”

Enjolras threw his hands in the air. “And what even  _is_ this, Parnasse?” He shook his head trying to keep his thoughts from running away from him. “What the hell happened?” It sounded far more desperate than intended.

But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing because something in Montparnasse’s voice almost edged on softness.

“I know that’s probably the only thing on your mind right now but I feel like –” he stopped, shook his head and started anew, “I  _know_ it’s not my place to tell you. Jehan and I only knew because we were needed to help.”

“Jehan knew?” At least Enjolras now knew why they had never been able to look at him without guilt written all over their face. 

“Yes, they knew,” Montparnasse admitted, “But you don’t really want to talk to Jehan either.”

And wasn’t he right about that.

Enjolras sighed and tried to lean back in the small of the board toilet, suddenly feeling like gravity tried to pull him through the bottom of the plane and down, all the miles to the ground. “I don’t know what to say to him,” he confessed, more to himself, “not when it matters. That’s always been the problem.”

Montparnasse shrugged. “Maybe you could start with what you didn’t say the last time but what the hell do I know about things like that?”

For some reason Enjolras couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Hell. He was really thinking about taking advice from  _Montparnasse_ of all people. “I might not know what happened or how you fit into all of this but I kind of feel like I should apologize for spending a year wanting to kill you.”

The other man huffed. “What about almost killing me about three hours ago?”

“Yeah, for that too.”

“Apology accepted,” Montparnasse said rolling his eyes but then his expression turned serious again, " _if_ you talk to Grantaire.”

Enjolras reflexively winced but the usual pain that came with the mentioning of Grantaire’s name was dull, more merged with something like anger or betrayal or confusion or all of it at once.

“But,” Montparnasse added, taking a disgusted look around, “please wait until the only place to have a private conversation isn’t a toilet on an airplane. Kind of kills the mood.”

“Oh shut up.”

 

***

 

_6 hours later_

P.A.R.I.S. – F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

***

 

Enjolras slept through the whole rest of the flight.

He hadn’t even noticed he was tired until he had sat back down and even though sitting on a plane with little to no leg space wasn’t exactly the most comfortable position, he slept like he hadn’t in a year, deep and dreamless and when he woke up the plane was approaching Paris for landing.

He woke up and his first thought was that maybe it would have been better if he had kept sleeping.

The bundle of anxiety curled up in his chest had been wonderfully soothed after the conversation with Montparnasse which was absurd, to say at least, but not all too surprising in the end.

When the plane set onto the ground with a wobbly, rattling impact it all came crushing down and this time his mind wasn’t nice enough to shut everything out.

Enjolras low-key felt like throwing up.

Or maybe not that low-key.

When he stood up he was surprised his legs were supporting him enough that he wasn’t collapsing back into his seat which seemed like a promising prospect. A pretty petite brunette who had been sitting next to him the whole flight – and who he hadn’t even actively registered until then – looked at him slightly worried but Enjolras ignored her.

The aisle filled with chattering, hectic people reaching for their back packs when suddenly Enjolras felt a hand on his elbow. He turned to see Courfeyrac, worry in his bright eyes mixed with relief when Enjolras wasn’t looking at him like he wasn’t there.

“How are you?” Courfeyrac didn’t ask thinks like, “Is everything alright?” because he knew it wasn’t. A ‘How are you?’ basically meant, ‘One a scale of one to ten, how _bad_ is it?’

Enjolras contemplated for a moment if a hysterical laugh would be inappropriate.

Probably. He didn’t really care.

“Terrible, pretty much,” he managed to get out, his throat felt kind of constricted, “Which is an improvement, I suppose, considering the situation and it’s not as bad as before because that was literally not, I don’t know, just –”

“Breathe,” the architect ordered and Enjolras was too surprised not to do what he said.

Also breathing was good, breathing helped.

Courfeyrac leaned closer. The movement didn’t seem out of order in the crowded aisles. “We’re going to talk to Jehan and they will explain this whole mess and if you want to you will talk to Grantaire and everything will be fine. And if you don't everything will be fine too. Maybe not today or tomorrow or in a year but some day. All you have to do  _now_ is breathe and it’ll be alright.”

Enjolras believed him.

Courfeyrac always knew the right words in every situation, what was needed to be said. Enjolras might have envied him for that if he hadn’t loved him so much for it.

“Thank you.” He covered the architect’s hand still holding on to his elbow.

Courfeyrac smiled. “Anytime.” He looked  down at where Enjolras’s hand was clasping his and there was no mockery, no judgement in his voice when he asked, “Do you want me to hold your hand?”

Enjolras nodded.

“Okay.”

He didn’t let go the whole way to Jehan’s headquarters. The grounding presence of Courfeyrac’s hand in his and not much later Combeferre’s on his back calmed his senses and healthily stopped his mind from spinning out of control. Courfeyrac was humming something under his breath quietly during their whole drive with the taxi from the airport into the city.

Enjolras didn’t look at Grantaire.

He felt sure that if he did he was going to break.

He had more important things to do before that happened.

When they got out of the car Enjolras squeezed Courfeyrac’s hand indicating it was alright for him to let go. He did if only reluctantly.

Enjolras hadn’t been back in Paris during the last three years and only knew about the picturesque Parisian townhouse through reports of the others.

Montparnasse had a key.

Enjolras didn’t remember a single one of the whole team with the privilege of having a key to goddamn front door.

Montparnasse lead the way expertly with sure, graceful steps like he owned the place followed by Courfeyrac and Combeferre with Enjolras between them. He could practically feel Grantaire’s presence behind him but he wasn’t looking at him, Enjolras would have known if he was.

In front of a big wooden double door Montparnasse stopped, one hand hovering over one of the handles. He turned to them with a thoughtful expression. “Could you all, maybe wait a couple of seconds before you follow me, I really want to enjoy this.”

He didn’t bother to wait for an answer, just threw his head back, black hair falling perfectly into place before he threw the doors open at once, stepping inside with a grin as wide as his face.

“Well, hello everyone!”

Courfeyrac facepalmed, Combeferre rolled his eyes and Enjolras could only stare as he heard multiple guns unlock, paired with gasps and there might have been a heavy sigh. He couldn’t look around the corner but it sounded like there were more people in the room than just Jehan.

Enjolras reacted on instinct.

He didn’t follow Combeferre and Courfeyrac when they walked into the room.

He stayed where he was. He didn’t think when he held out his arm and his hand collided with a solid body.

From the corner of his eye Enjolras could see Grantaire staring at the hand against his chest stopping him from stepping forward, shocked.

He didn’t know whose heartbeat was faster, his own or the one he could feel under his fingers.

Enjolras gathered all his willpower to not look at him. “Everyone’s in there.” He didn’t know why he was so sure of it, only that he was.

Grantaire tensed. Enjolras could feel every movement against his hand.

“Better get this over with then.” Grantaire’s voice was rough.

And maybe he _was_ weak but then maybe so was Grantaire because when he turned his head blue and green eyes were already looking at him but, surprisingly, Enjolras wasn’t breaking down or trembling or looking away.

Maybe, he thought, because looking at him had felt more like becoming whole than falling apart.

He didn’t know where the next question came from, why he was asking it, only that it was all he could think and all he could say, so he did.

“Are you alright?”

 

***


	25. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC IV/VII

 

 

IV/VII

 

-Grantaire-

 

***

 

“Are you alright?”

Enjolra's voice, careful, hesitant cut through the swirling mess of thoughts in Grantaire’s mind and for a moment everything went silent, the world reduced to the blue of Enjolras’s eyes that were clearly filled with the one thing Grantaire hadn’t expected to see.

 

Genuine worry.

 

He might have been able to take anger or confusion but if he was quite honest, he couldn’t take any of it. He didn’t even know how he had made it through the last couple of hours. Shock, probably.

But the clear blue of Enjolras’s eyes looking at him, actually _looking_ , not just a flickering gaze, really looking at him brought back the reality of the situation, of Enjolras next to him, the feeling of his hand against Grantaire’s chest, heartbeat, heartbeat, and the people right inside the next room not knowing what he had done, that he was even _alive._

 

He couldn’t do it.

“I can’t do it.”

 

Grantaire turned around on his heels and ran, in the opposite direction, down the hall, away. Just... away. 

He didn’t know if Enjolras was following him and he didn’t know he was allowed to hope that he did. He did know that he couldn’t stand another person looking at him with absolute shock in their eyes as if the world had ended and Grantaire was the cause.

He was glad he knew the house like the back of his hand after being mended back to health the last time he had to make people believe he was dead and wasn’t that just one fucking fantastic story?

'Hey, what do you do for a living?' 'Oh, you know, just getting myself into situations where I have to pretend to be dead for varying amounts of time. You know, nothings special, how ‘bout you?'

 

Right. _Amazing._

 

The one door down the stairs and to the right he had headed for more out of habbit than consciously appeared seemingly out of nowhere and Grantaire send a thank you to all the gods people believed in when he found it unlocked.

The moment he closed the door behind him he sank down onto the ground. His legs would have probably given in sooner or later anyway.

 

He had always loved the room. Joly’s bureau looked more like it belonged to paediatrician than to the secretary of a … business consultant, or whatever Jehan could officially be considered. Grantaire remembered how they had painted the flowers on the left wall together with Bossuet and it had ended up with probably more paint stains on places where they weren’t supposed to be than on the wall.

The window colours were new though. He wondered when they had been put up, where  _he_ had been. Somewhere in Europe? South America? Or already wallowing in self pity and hatred in Montreal?

 

A dry sob escaped his throat before he could stop it.

‘Breathe,’ a voice in his head said and of course it sounded a lot like Joly what for once, didn’t really make it better.

 

There was a shuffling of feet behind the door, then a pause followed by a hesitant knock.

He had no idea what to do. Ignore it? Continue staring into nothing trying not to start panicking again?

 

The decision was taken from him when Enjolras’s voice sounded quietly through the door.

“Grantaire, let me in. Please?”

Grantaire had always been rather good at not following Enjolras’s orders. He had never been good at denying his requests.

He didn’t know how long it took to stand up on his feet and open the door with a trembling hand that he carefully ignored. Time was a concept that had kind of slipped away from him.

Enjolras looked up when Grantaire opened the door, releasing his lower lip that he had been worrying between his teeth and time? What even was time? Nothing that you really cared about if you wanted a moment to last forever.

The other man cleared his throat and well, there clearly wasn’t such a thing as forever. “You should maybe, let me in and close the door if you don’t want anyone to find you right now.”

Grantaire considered remarking that letting him in and not wanting anyone to find him was definitely a contradiction because ‘anyone’ would then include Enjolras but only implying he didn’t want him to be there would have been a straight-out lie.

Because he really,  _really_ didn’t want Enjolras to go even if every second of looking at him felt like a stab to his heart.

Pathetic, but at least it distracted from the anxiety trying to get a hold of him as well as the tension in the room that suddenly seemed a lot smaller.

So instead of saying anything Grantaire opened the door wider for Enjolras to step inside, then closed it again. He turned around, looked at the other man, golden hair brightened by the sunlight shining through the large window and decided it a good idea to just sit down again.

Enjolras started and looked around the room. “Don’t you think they’d look here first?”

Grantaire couldn’t really argue with that not even for the sake of arguing.

He shrugged weakly. “I always liked it here,” he said instead of, ‘Why are you even talking to me?’ He let his head fall back against the door with a thud. “It’s just so…” And he didn’t know how to continue because there weren’t words to describe just how _Joly_  the room was, bright and cheerful and Grantaire could feel tears filling the edges of his vision and blinked them away.

“I can’t do it.” He could feel Enjolras’s eyes on him but didn’t dare to look back. “I couldn’t stand Joly or Bossuet – I couldn’t stand them looking at me like –”

And he didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t say, ‘Like you did. I can’t even stand you looking at me like you did.’

He had no idea what he was supposed, allowed or not allowed to say what usually wasn’t a thing he cared about but there was nothing _usual_  about the whole situation, the whole _mess_.

What did you say to the man you lead to believe you were dead for a year? When he suddenly showed up one day after you had thought about him _every_  day for a year?

“They won’t hate you.”

Grantaire wondered if he was ever going to stop being surprised again when Enjolras said something to him. The other man sighed and then did something Grantaire hadn’t expected. Even though literally  _everything_ he had been doing during the last couple of minutes was something Grantaire hadn’t expected.

Enjolras sat down on the floor opposite of Grantaire and leaned back against Joly’s desk. “Believe me, they won’t. I’m lucky enough to know one or two things about friendship.”

Grantaire blamed it on Enjolras’s close proximity and on the fact that otherwise he would have certainly started to cry, that his mouth was faster than his brain when he huffed. “Yeah, I’m _really_ looking forward to talk to Courf and Ferre about this.”

Whatever this was.

 

Enjolras regarded him with a long, levelled look across the room that reminded Grantaire a disturbingly lot of Montparnasse before saying dryly, “You know, I was talking about Marius.”

 

Grantaire stared at him. Blinked.

 

And then, after a moment of absolute silence, he couldn’t help but laugh, startled and absolutely shocked and he did sound a little bit hysterical but so did Enjolras when he joined after another heartbeat. As absurd as it was, it made sense. All the tension and caution was too exhausting at one point and breaking through felt like a new morning, no matter if it was only just for a couple of moments.

It was like the air in the room felt lighter all at once.

“That was terrible,” he got out after a minute or more of surprised, disbelieving laughter. His sides hurt but it the situation was too unreal to care about any sort of pain.

Enjolras shrugged helplessly. “Seemed like a good idea.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. Just… unexpected.”

The other man huffed. “What  _did_ you expect?”

“I really didn’t have much time to think about it,” Grantaire confessed honestly, “But probably for you to punch me or something.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes but there was no hostility on his face, just a small if tired smile. “I feel like I kind of let out most of my pent-up anger on Parnasse already.”

“He probably deserved that,” Grantaire muttered under his breath.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I don’t know, does there have to be a reason for wanting to punch Montparnasse?”

“Not really.” Another small smile, then the other man’s expression suddenly turned serious and the air in the room with it. “He told me to talk to you. Parnasse, I mean. Courf told me that I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”

“And you listened to _Parnasse_?”

 

Enjolras shook his head. “No. I want to.”

 

Grantaire’s throat went dry. He could clearly feel his heart beating in his chest, too quickly and forced himself to take a deep breath. “You don’t have to,” he said and his voice sounded chocked all of sudden, more like a whisper.

“I know. But I want to.”

The silence wove its way into the air between them but Grantaire almost didn’t notice, turning the words around over and over again in his head and having no idea what they were supposed to mean. It didn’t matter in the end because he knew it wasn’t on him to decide. But he could still make the moments that Enjolras was willing to spend with him, listen to him, count.

 

“Okay.”

 

Enjolras frowned when Grantaire reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the silver flask that was always in there. It was difficult to lean forward, hold it out for Enjolras to take because every fibre of his being resisted against it remembering what he had been told since the first time he had heard about dream sharing.

The other man kept looking at him questioningly but reached out and took the silver object.

Grantaire wondered if he was deliberately avoiding their fingers to touch.

When his hand was empty he sacked back against the door while Enjolras carefully regarded the flask.

“Why is everyone always trying to get me to drink when they’re talking to me?”

Grantaire couldn’t help but smile a little. It was strange to smile that much, like the muscles of his face weren’t used to it anymore. “I don’t drink. It’s empty. It  _technically_ always is.”

The furrow on Enjolras’s forehead deepened and for a few seconds he just looked increasingly confused until he understood. The change on his face was instant, blue eyes widening, jaw going slack.

He stared at the flask as if it had suddenly gotten legs and started talking, then back up at Grantaire.

“Is this your…?”

“My totem, yes.”

 

One of the most important rules of dream sharing was to never give – or better not even let anyone ever  _see_ – your totem because it was the only thing tying you to reality when it mattered, the only thing you could trust when you felt like loosing your mind. Giving someone else your totem, showing or telling them what it meant, how it worked only made you one thing.

_Vulnerable._

“Why are you giving me this?” Enjolras’s voice was shaking slightly but his grip around the flask didn’t loosen once.

Grantaire took a deep breath.

 

All or nothing.

“Seems fair.”

 

The moment it took for Enjolras to figure out the meaning of the words might have just been the longest of Grantaire’s life. And he expected the world to explode, expected shouting, anger, something loud, something painful and something that would inevitably break the last intact remains of his heart.

He waited, and none of it happened.

“Of course,” Enjolras murmured under his breath more to himself. Grantaire waited but the other man just absentmindedly spun the flask in his hands. “I was sure it was a dream, you know,“ he continued a little louder then. “It was like we were running through the same couple of streets again and again and I felt like being watched, the whole time. I was  _sure_ it was a dream.” He looked up to meet Grantaire’s eyes.

He couldn’t have stopped himself from looking into the bright blue of Enjolras’s eyes even if he had wanted to, even if he was scared as hell of every next words. “You swapped my totem with a manipulated one because you figured out how it worked and I didn’t notice. You made me believe it was reality but it wasn’t.” It wasn’t a question.

Grantaire didn’t trust his voice so he simply nodded.

He startled when Enjolras stood up abruptly, walked a few steps towards the window, his back turned to Grantaire.

He didn’t dare to move, breathe even while Enjolras ran a hand through his hair, his deep intake of breath clearly audible in the silence of the room. Then he turned around and there it was, a harshness that made his eyes look incredibly cold, that Grantaire had seen directed at him many, many times but never quite like this.

He didn’t remember it hurting that much.

“Was Patron-Minette even in New York?”

Grantaire flinched at his tone but willed himself to answer because Enjolras deserved answers, and  _he_ didn’t deserve softness. “No. They disappeared after the attack on Babet in Frankfurt.” He didn’t say ‘our’ attack. He felt like he had lost the privilege to do so.

“So you needed Jehan to make everyone believe they were. And Parnasse to take the fall.” And again, it wasn’t a question and Grantaire, despite the harshness, the cold of Enjolras’s tone, was glad because it meant he didn’t have to answer. He didn’t think he could have because the other man crossed the room to stop right in front of him. He held the flask at arm’s length towards Grantaire.

It was more of a reflex when he reached out and took it but Enjolras didn’t walked away again after he had let go. He crouched down, still incredibly graceful, so that he was at eye-level with Grantaire. His outstretched legs were almost touching Enjolras’s feet.

“It’s good to know that at least I’m not crazy,” he said. “But I don’t really care.”

Grantaire winced but Enjolras seemed to either not notice or ignore the movement. “I don’t care who did what. Or how.” His eyes were clear and blue and determined. “Why did you do it?”

Grantaire willed himself to answer while Enjolras looked at him like he was trying to see into his soul. Maybe he could, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Because I had to.” He would see it was the truth.

“ _Why_?”

 

And god, he deserved and answer to that even if it was going to tear open Grantiare’s chest, lay his heart bare for the rest of the world to see only that it was just Enjolras, not the world but where was the difference?

 

“When…,” he started, took another breath to calm himself enough to get the words out, “When you, Courfeyrac and I” – not we, not anymore – “were in Babet’s mind, back in Frankfurt, and everything went south, Courf was out and you were out and I, I was still in the dream and I was about to jump, I was right behind you but before I could someone shot me in the leg but I didn’t wake up and when I turned around Babet was there – and he saw me. I had dropped the forge already and he saw _me_.”

Enjolras closed his eyes and Grantaire knew he was starting to understand. He spoke faster, not able to stop now that he had started. “Patron-Minette, the Thénardiers, they thought I was dead after Parnasse had shot me, that’s why they never tried to come after me. But Babet, he recognized me, I could see that he did so he knew I _wasn't_. And they would have tried to find me, especially because I was _in his head_ , they would have looked for me, everywhere and they would have found me eventually, would have gotten to me but more importantly they would have figured out who I was _with_. They would have gotten to _you.”_

He could have meant all of them, the whole team, Jehan, everyone but it was painstakingly obvious he didn’t. Not really.

 

Enjolras opened his eyes and all of the coldness was washed away as if it had never been there but his gaze was fixed more on Grantaire’s chin, rather than further up as if he didn’t trust himself to look into his eyes again.

“You could have told me.” He was trying to control his voice, keep it firm, steady.

Grantaire didn’t know what exactly what he was trying to conceal and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

“You could have done nothing,” he answered without any blame.

“How can you know?”

“When they wanted me dead the last time the only reason I didn’t die was because they thought I did, the Thénardiers wouldn’t have let me get out of the whole thing alive after figuring out I was working for Jehan. And they wouldn’t have let me go this time after I was in Babet’s mind. There was no other way to keep you out of their line as for me… disappear.”

 

Die. It felt like he really had, from time to time.

 

“Why didn’t you leave?” Enjolras voice had gone quiet, not low, not cold, just quiet. “You could have left. Or did you know that –” He stopped mid-sentence and his eyes snapped up to meet Grantaire’s almost pleadingly, as if he was waiting from him to finish the sentence, as if he should know how it ended only that he didn’t.

“I know that I’m not a strong person Enjolras.” The other man frowned but Grantaire didn’t let himself be interrupted. “If I had left, just left with some flimsy, made up excuse – I might have been able to do it, I might have pulled it off somehow but I _know_ I wouldn’t have been able to stay away.”

Enjolras looked at him disbelievingly. It made him look younger. “You really think that. You  _really_ think  _that_ would have happened?”

This time Grantaire frowned. “What do you mean?”

Enjolras shook his head, still incredulous. He opened his mouth, about to say something else but then he abruptly stood up.

“How did Patron-Minette not find you? You stayed in Montreal the whole time.”

 

The change of subject happened so promptly that Grantaire needed a second to catch up.

“Well…,” he started hesitantly, “It actually didn’t really work out as planned. I was unconscious, Jehan has developed this sort of tranquilizer that results in a well, death-like state for an hour or so” – he chose to not react to Enjolras’s flinch – “I don’t really understand all that chemical gibberish but anyway, I was unconscious and Parnasse practically dragged me to a man who he knew was or had been an informant of Patron-Minette to show that he had, you could say finished what the Thénardiers had asked him to do five years ago pretending to trade my death for his safety. And it made them believe I was, well, you know.” He winced. “Parnasse is good at making people believe what he wants them to believe.”

Enjolras stared at him.

“You are telling me,” he said very slowly, controlled, “that Parnasse brought you to an informant of Patron-Minette when you were unconscious to convince them you were dead when you weren’t really dead knowing very well he could have been easily killed on spot.” Grantaire winced again. “Is. He. _Mad_?”

He suppressed the urge to shrug helplessly because he was very sure it wouldn’t benefit the situation. “In retrospect, it  _was_ a better idea. He got Patron-Minette off my back. _Again_.”

Enjolras looked at him like Grantaire had completely lost his mind. “By doing something dangerous, reckless and stupid, _Again_. He could have get you _killed_ , both of you.”

 

It was slightly surreal to hear Enjolras being upset that Grantaire might have died when a few hours ago he _had been_  dead for him. Paradox somehow, but then again, what wasn’t?

 

“That’s what Jehan said. But we didn’t. Die, I mean.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, just like that and Grantaire didn’t know what to make of it.

Enjolras began walking around in the room again, half a circle, then back and Grantaire watched him all the while as he ran a hand through his hair, irrevocably tousled by that point, until the other man sighed and turned back to him still sitting on the ground. “This is a mess,” he stated and Grantaire couldn’t disagree. “But I understand why you did it. I think."

‘Do you really?’ he wanted to ask. ‘Do you really know that I did it for you, that I did it because I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if something had happened to you? That if I was a good man I would have done it for the others too, for everyone but I didn’t because I did it for you, always you.’

He didn’t say any of it.

Enjolras didn’t seem to notice any of Grantaire’s inner turmoil or if he did, he didn’t seem to understand the reason. “And I also think Joly and Bossuet will understand, everyone will.”

“Why aren’t you angry?” The question fell out of his mouth before Grantaire could stop himself.

Enjolras huffed. “I  _am_ angry, I suppose,” he said but he only sounded tired, “I mean, I feel like I should be angry but I honestly don’t know right now.”

And Grantaire nodded as if he understood what that was supposed to mean because he didn’t want to break the fragile thing, whatever it was, that had built up between them in the last minutes. Or had it been hours? He didn’t know how long they had been in the room but he was drained like he hadn’t slept in days but at the same time he hadn’t felt so calm, so composed for weeks, months even.

“Okay.” He said into the silence of the room instead.

Enjolras looked at him, brows slightly furrowed, then walked the few steps back from the window to the door, back, back and held out his hand.

Grantaire wondered for a moment if maybe he  _did_ die.

He wasn’t sure how his heart managed to keep beating or his lungs breathing but he stared at the hand, up at Enjolras, back down and Enjolras didn’t move and waited, waited for Grantaire to realize that he was very much not dead and regain enough presence of mind to take Enjolras’s hand and let himself be pulled to his feet and suddenly they were standing close, so close Grantaire could have counted the freckles on Enjolras’s nose, cheeks if the time had stopped right there.

But because fate and all united forces of the universe seemed to hold a grudge against him it didn’t.

 

Enjolras let go of his hand but he didn’t step back.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked again with the same, undeniable worry in his eyes like before and Grantaire looked at the beautiful, _forgiving_ , good man right in front of him and thought maybe, maybe not the whole universe. It was quite enough when there were only a few people that didn’t hate him.

“Better,” he said and he meant it.

Not perfect, not great, not even okay.

But better.

 

And when he followed Enjolras his hands were clenched inside his pockets, holding on to nothing but his legs weren’t even shaking anymore.

 

***

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's like the easy way out to say that ‘how’ someone faked their death doesn’t matter but personally I get really frustrated when I don’t know so yes, I did make a plan and because it would have gottn far too long and not really fit into the story, I put it on [my tumblr](http://vintage-jehan.tumblr.com/post/140579262554/another-bonus-thing-y-for-my-les-mis-inception-au) again for those of you who are interested.  
> Also this chapter was incredibly difficult to write for me (maybe because I was getting really emotional in between about ten times? Probably.) I hope you enjoyed it anyway and from now on you can look forward to the last three chapters because *drum roll* SHOWDOWN.


	26. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC V/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was thinking about this chapter’s POV and decided I needed a break from writing while trying not to cry and there’s been a severe lack of someone awesome and important in this fic so far which had to be mended. Hope you enjoy it. ♥

 

 

 V/VII

 

-Cosette-

 

***

 

Honestly, Cosette wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Montparnasse stepped in with a grin on his face that could only be called smug.

Well, he at least knew how to make an entrance, she had to give him that.

Everyone expect her and Jehan raised their guns in a reflex established over years of being on alert constantly.

Marius next to her breathed in sharply, so did Bahorel and Feuilly. Jehan sighed. Heavily.

Montparnasse grinned and Cosette was not surprised.

 

She had started putting the pieces together during the last days even though Jehan hadn’t said much but they hadn’t have to.

Patron-Minette showing up in Paris again lead by Babet who was supposed to be dead in a street in New York got one thinking.

Montparnasse was one of the missing puzzle pieces and Cosette waited for the last one to around the corner.

It didn’t.

 

Instead Combeferre and Courfeyrac entered the room behind Montparnasse carefully and Cosette could almost feel everyone getting even more perplexed. Jehan pinched the bridge of their nose and looked like they would rather be anywhere else.

“What the hell is going on?” Joly was the one to break the stunned silence, eyes fixed on Montparnasse and Cosette had never seen the small man, usually bright and bubbly look so murderous before.

Bossuet had to hold him back with one arm around his waist even though he didn’t look much more composed himself.

“Well,” Montparnasse stared but Cosette cut him off before he could do any more damage to the situation that was tense enough already.

“He didn’t sell us out in New York. Patron-Minette wasn’t even there.”

Jehan looked up at her with an expression of gratefulness and pride.

“What?” Bossuet got out at the same moment Joly exclaimed. “What happened to R then?” His voice was equal parts horrified and angry and it send a chill down Cosette’s spine because she had never heard him sound so far from happy and kind, the usual way he talked. Jehan looked at her and she wasn’t a hundred percent sure about the next part, but it made  _sense_ and they nodded minimally so she said it.

“He’s alive.”

Joly and Bossuet and everyone else’s eyes darted from Montparnasse to Jehan and one could have heard a needle drop in the silent seconds that made it obvious Jehan wasn’t going to correct her.

“Oh my god,” Bossuet breathed out, followed by at least two “What?”s, Cosette wasn’t sure about Joly’s, it was too quiet, and an utterly startled “Come again?” from Bahorel.

Montparnasse turned to her. “And how do  _you_ know?”

“I put two and two together,” she said dryly.

“My, how clever.”

“God, I hate that guy,” Bahorel muttered under his breath from somewhere to her right and Parnasse seemed to have heard him because his grin turned predatory. “Only because I dress better than you. Even though I have to admit the waistcoat is a nice touch.”

Bahorel looked ready to punch him and Cosette could relate.

He seemed to notice that as well because he wisely chose to stop antagonizing literally everyone in the room. “Great. Now that that’s settled would you all please be so kind and put down the guns?”

No one moved for a second, then slowly lowered their weapons.

Marius cleared his throat. “Sorry, quick question . If Grantaire is alive then – where is he?”

And that was well, a good question.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac turned around and from the surprised expression on their faces Cosette concluded that he must have been with them before they came into the room. It wasn’t a far stretch to assume that Enjolras had been supposed to have come after them too.

The silence in the room was interrupted, as one could have expected, Cosette thought, by Montparnasse. The black haired man shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, since Enjolras’s not here too I wouldn’t go look for them, if you know what I mean.”

The next thing happened so quickly that even Cosette couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. She probably hadn’t even if she had known though.

Joly slipped out of Bossuet’s grip, crossed the room and punched Montparnasse straight in the jaw.

“Show some damn respect,” he snapped as the other man staggered back. “Asshole.”

Cosette was pretty sure to hear Jehan chuckle quietly.

Montparnasse stared incredulously at the man in front of him, several inches smaller and touched his lip.

“First, ouch. Second, _rude_. Third, why do only I get punched?”

“You don’t exactly make people _not_ want to punch you,” Joly said with a huff, then turned to Jehan. “And _you_ , I would punch you too if I wasn't so intimidated by you.”

Montparnasse looked scandalized. “Wait, does that mean you’re not intimidated by me?”

Joly looked at where his lip was already staring to swell a little. “Please.”

“I was _surprised_ ," he muttered under his breath but quiet enough that everyone could easily ignore him.

Jehan sat up in their wheelchair, spine straightening and hadn’t she knew them Cosette might have been intimidated too in that moment by their presence alone. It was astonishing how quickly they could be all that, charismatic, brave when they usually were one of the gentlest, quietest people Cosette knew.

“We did what was necessary,” they explained leaving no doubt on their authority on that matter. “When you –” they turned to Courfeyrac who had been surprisingly silent the entire time “– were trying to get information out of Babet back in Frankfurt, he recognized Grantaire. Patron-Minette and by that the Thénardiers as well thought he was dead. By him being in Babet’s mind it was obvious he wasn’t and still or again working actively. Because he had been working for me before and we knew that they would have  come after him since he’s the only real link they have directly to me. And they would have figured out that he was working with you as well, venturing our advantage over them, our safety, our _lives_. What we did was the only way to guarantee his, your and our safety while going after the Thénardiers. But we’re close now,  _they're_ close. We need all the help we can get and R knows them better than all of us.”

They ignored Montparnasse who cleared his throat pointedly.

Bossuet had drawn Joly back into his arms who looked about to cry. “So only you and Parnasse knew?” he asked quietly. Jehan nodded. “Cosette?” When he looked at here she felt the overwhelming urge to hug him too and was incredibly glad Bossuet was by his side.

“I only just figured it out,” she said softly. “I picked up footage of Babet at the Gare du Nord a few days ago. He was supposed to be dead. It didn’t add up. I didn’t know for certain.”

“Wait,” Bossuet said and his eyes flickered to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. “Enjolras didn’t know?”

Courfeyrac shook his head and Cosette could see even from across the room that Combeferre’s hand tightened around his, pulling him just a little bit closer.

“Oh my god,” Bossuet breathed out. “He must be –” He stopped there, shock and compassion written all over his face as if he hadn’t been the one seeing Grantaire dead too, bleeding in the street, for a  _second_ time already. As if it didn’t matter that he had thought he had lost his best friend too. Cosette hoped that somewhere, someday he was going to get rewarded for all of the selflessness he didn’t even seem to be aware of.

“He is holding up,” Combeferre said but it must have been obvious for everyone that he was worried. The silence that descended over the room then was a heavy one, shocked until Montparnasse opened his mouth – probably to say something punch-worthy – but Bahorel was faster.

“I’m going to make tea,” he stated and it was such an ordinary, mundane thing to say thrown into all the tension that a huge part of it suddenly seemed to drop away, making it easier to breather. Feuilly followed him and Cosette thought that he could complain and tease the other man as much as he wanted, it couldn’t hide the looks of warm adoration traded between them.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac had approached Jehan while Bossuet was talking soothingly to Joly, one hand carding through the smaller man’s black hair gently.

Cosette managed not to flinch when Montparnasse was suddenly standing next to her seemingly out of nowhere.

Marius made a noise that was a mixture of a curse and a squeak.

Montparnasse ignored him. His already slightly swollen lip looked out of place in his face. “I hate him,” he said staring after Bahorel.

Cosette tried to suppress a smile. “Why? Because his fashion sense can actually keep up with yours?”

His eyes narrowed but he didn’t argue. “He’s a good person on top of that. It annoys me.”

“Do you even  _listen_ to yourself?”

Montparnasse shrugged and Cosette could relate to Jehan when she sighed. “I’m glad you’re didn't sell us out. You're not one of the bad guys,” she said and meant it. They had known each other for over three years now, from the moment he had left the Amis and Jehan had have an interest in not letting him be killed. Cosette had thought she and Bahorel were a little overqualified for what had been basically a baby-sitting job but they certainly had been proven otherwise.

 

The man was a  _menance_.

He also was one of the most difficult person to read she had ever met.

 

He looked unusually thoughtful when he replied. “Well, I can not really be considered one of the good guys either, can I?”

“That’s for you to decide,” she said and because the look on his face was growing to distant she added airily, “But you’re not making it easy or the rest of us, I’m kind of glad Joly punched you, I was short from doing it myself.”

The left corner of his mouth twitched. “We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

“ _You_ wouldn’t,” she countered but he had already trailed off into the general direction of Jehan again not before winking at her over his shoulder.

Marius’s arm sneaked around her waist. “ _I_ think he’s inimitading,” he muttered into her hair and Cosette couldn’t help but laugh a little at that.

“You didn’t have time to get used to him yet. He’s … difficult.”

“And he’s kind of an asshole?”

This time she turned around in his arms to hide her laugh in his shoulder and the fabric of his shirt was soft against her cheek. “He is. But he still cares.“

“Your people are weird,” Marius stated decidedly and she took a step back, just enough to look up at him and smiled. “You’re one of us, you know that?”

And it was like glimmer of light in the mess of the last days when he smiled back at her. “I really am, right?” It didn’t sound like a question at all.

She was about to stand up on her tiptoes to kiss him, just for that, but the door opened again revelling Bahorel carefully balancing a tray with two teapots and cookies – wherever he had found those within a couple of minutes. Montparnasse face immediately turned into a scowl as Bahorel started handing out mugs with Feuilly proclaiming as his sous-chef. The red-haired man rolled his eyes but the come-back turned out lax.

Cosette couldn’t blame him. She was actually surprised how well everyone was talking the news but then again, they were all used to gun fights, running, trickery and whatsoever so a thick skin was basically mandatory in their field of work.

 

The door opened slowly again an a tea cup fell to the ground shattering into a few dozen pieces.

 

Grantaire looked like he wanted to stumble right back out of the room again, wide-eyed and terrified, but Enjolras was standing right behind him. Cosette averted her eyes when Joly and Bossuet wordlessly embraced him in a mess or arms and hands, choked, hushed words she didn’t understand.

She risked a glance at Enjolras instead who looked a bit shaken but all in all fine. He looked at Combeferre and Courfeyrac and his small nod seemed to mean something because both of them visibly relaxed.

She inconspicuously tugged Marius with her, a few steps closer to Jehan when Enjolras made his way over.

“Thank you,” he said and she wondered if he knew how sincere he sounded.

“I didn’t do it for you,” they answered with just enough emphasis on the ‘I’ to make it noticeable.

“Still.”

Cosette couldn’t see Jehan’s face but their voice was gentle. “You’re welcome.”

 

***

 

Bahorel made four more pots of tea until everything had remotely calmed down.

Cosette hadn’t thought that ‘congrats you’re not dead’-wishes could somehow  _not_ be awkward but apparently their lives were just weird enough to make that a possibility.

To her surprise Enjolras had not sat down next to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. He had glanced at Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire for a second but quickly averted his eyes, giving them space and then walked over to Montparnasse.

They weren’t talking, not even quite looking at each other but for some reason they didn’t look uncomfortable once as if in silent understanding.

Cosette carded her fingers though Marius’s hair, his head resting on her shoulder before she momentarily got distracted by the dust of freckles on his cheeks.

Montparnasse cleared his throat. “So what’s happening now?” He sounded bored.

Marius looked up at her with an expression of, “See what I mean?” She rolled her eyes but that probably didn’t stop her from looking fond.

“Jehan, you said you had a plan?” Courfeyrac piped up from where he was sitting on Combeferre’s lap, a red tea cup with white dots in his hands.

“I do,” they said calmly and Cosette straightened at the words, attentive. “We give them what they want, at least we let them think we do.”

“Right,” Montparnasse murmured. “They’re not stupid.”

Jehan looked incredibly unfazed. “No, but they’re desperate. They let Babet run around in Paris like a walking advertisement. They want us to come out. I say we indulge them. They won’t get to the actual Somnacin because there are only a hand full of people who know where it is. We will make them believe it’s somewhere else, let them take a counterfeit, not without putting up a fight, of course, but I believe we’re quite good at staging things not real.” The temperature in the room seemingly dropped a couple of degrees. “If they’ve taken it we will track them.”

“They are going to suspect we will,” Feuilly remarked and Jehan nodded.

“Of course they are going to. That’s why they’ll want to get rid of everything but the  _actual_ Somnacin but they don’t know that every PASIV device is modified to send out a signal if misused. They’re usually not traceable because the radiation would disturb another signal -”

“ _Radiation_?” Courfeyrac looked more than slightly concerned but Combeferre shook his head thoughtfully.

“Not every kind of radiation is dangerous. It basically just means energy is transferred through space away from a source.”

Jehan nodded approvingly. “Exactly. But I can modify the Somnacin in the dream inducing substance enough that it’ll set off the tracking device but still work if they test it out, not long, not really stable but possibly long enough to make them believe it’s real. They'll want to find out quickly.”

“You can do all that?” Combeferre asked with a hint of awe in his voice.

Jehan’s eyes suddenly became distant, a small smile playing around the corners of their mouth. “It’s a peculiar substance. Very pliable. As long as it doesn’t get into contact with water it can be changed, modified in a million different ways, it’s… quite magical actually. There’s the one deposit on earth but it’s endlessly regenerative. It grows. Slowly. It’s beautiful.”

“Do you have it ready?”

Jehan almost startled at the chemist’s question but then composed themself quickly. “I'll have to check on it again but all in all yes. All we have to do is go out there, call attention to us and lead them where we want them. It’ll have to be inconspicuous, delicately handled. I think I don’t have to remind you there’s a lot at stake here.”

“I’ll do it.”

Jehan turned to Enjolras who had stood up, tall, every inch leader. Jehan didn’t say anything. Cosette couldn’t help but think they were waiting for something but she had no idea what for.

 

“No.”

Right. Of course.

 

Enjolras turned around so quickly that Cosette was impressed when he didn’t fell over his feet in the process. Grantaire didn’t even let him start protesting, his eyes fixed on Jehan, not meeting Enjolras’s. “It’s  _nonsense_ to send him, you know that. They don’t know him, we’d have to make sure first that they'd associate him with you. It would be too suspicious for someone new to them suddenly show up. They know _me_.”

Enjolras whole body tensed. “No.”

Grantaire still wasn’t looking at him but Jehan, and if it wasn’t for the pleading look in his eyes one might have thought he was completely unaffected by the blond man who stood frozen on spot. “Jehan, you know it makes sense. They will _want_ to follow me.”

“ _No_.”

Grantaire spun around, turned away from Jehan to Enjolras, his eyes narrowed and burning. “I have  _not_ led them away from you just to put you right back into their line of fire.”

No one moved. Cosette wasn’t sure if anyone was even still breathing. It felt like intruding to look at the two men, their eyes locked like nothing else existed and maybe, for a moment, it didn't.

“Okay,” Jehan said and broke the silence. Cosette took a deep breath and she could feel Marius next to her doing the same, the rest of the room as well.

“You can’t be serious,” Joly got out, Bossuet put a hand on his arm.

Enjolras just looked shocked.

“It’s the best possible way,” Grantaire said softly to Joly, but not less firm. “We don’t have time to lose and it’ll put least people at risk.”

“Grantaire’s right,” Feuilly piped up and Enjolras turned to him with a look on his face as if he had been stabbed in the back. “Oh don’t look at me like that, you  _know_ he is. We all know he is.”

Cosette pulled Marius closer without thinking. The arm he put around her that fit perfectly around her shoulders.

Feuilly was right and Grantaire was right, the last months, years had taken their toll. They didn’t have time to lose. There was too much misery in one room.

Jehan looked mostly tired. “Since we’re all here now and this has to work out I’ll have to check on the modified Somnacin again. Ferre would you like to accompany me?” The chemist's face even lit up a little at that. Courfeyrac pointedly took his hand. “Joly, Bossuet I suppose you’ll want to take R to Chetta.” It wasn’t a question but both men nodded, agreeing without a word. Cosette noticed Enjolras biting down onto his lip but nothing else. “Cosette?”

“Yes?” She hadn’t expected her voice to sound so calm.

“Could you take Parnasse back to the airport?”

“Of course,” she said and didn’t show her surprise.

 

Everyone started standing up, a quiet mumbling of voices and shuffling of feet. She wasn't all _that_ surprised when not only Montparnasse made his way over to her but Enjolras as well.

Marius took her hand and not a single step away.

“You’re leaving,” Enjolras said and Montparnasse shrugged.

“What did you think? I brought you here, didn’t know why I let myself be talked into it honestly. Patron-Minette is in the city and if they find out R’s alive I’m fair game. So yeah, I’m leaving. I like my life, preferably _long_.”

Enjolras frowned but didn’t reply and didn’t make a move to step away.

 

Cosette nodded at them to follow her. She walked purposefully ahead and only Marius knew how tight she held on to his hand.

They didn’t talk on the way to the car and not when she pulled out of the parking garage, Marius next to her, the other two men in the backseat.

Paris was beautiful as always with a slightly gray sky, washed out like painted in watercolours.

Marius hummed when he was tense, a habit he had taken up after spending more time with Courfeyrac again. She was sure it was some Beyoncé song he didn’t even know half of the words to but it was soothing in a way, she couldn’t help but relax just a little in her seat.

He smiled at her with that small, loop-sided smile that made her feel warm, anywhere, anytime.

 

Cosette glanced over at him, just a second and in retrospect it was probably the one thing saving their lives.

 

She saw the fast approaching car from the corner of her eyes and reacted on instinct, no more time for anything else, jerking the steering wheel violently, slamming on the breaks, spinning left, left when the other car crashed into the rear of theirs, not the side. Every last breath was punched out of her lungs as the air bag blew up.

A second of dizziness, disorientation, a sharp intake of breath, then she ripped away her seat belt, the gun out of the glove box.

 

“Get down!”

 

She didn’t have time to see if Enjolras and Montparnasse followed her orders before a second car came to halt about ten, fifteen metres away, squealing tyres. There was a second of silence, a hiss ripping the air apart. The shot pierced the car window the same moment she pushed open the door on her side, pulling Marius with her. They tumbled outside. She shoved him down, behind the car.

The gun in her hand was perfect when she half crouched, half stood, taking cover behind their car and shot, ducking when the fire was retuned full force.

There were at least three people in the other vehicle, a van, black, huge with darkened windows. The car that had crashed into theirs wasn’t even in her mind. Anyone in there was dead, crushed. No need shooting dead people.

She cursed when a bullet flew over her head and ducked.

Back up, she needed back up, goddammit.

“Enjolras?!”

Something in her throat tightened when there was no answer. Marius ripped open the back door. Cosette stood up again, fired, fired, cursed.

There was a loud hiss from the damaged car making more alarm bells ring through the noise around her, the noise in her head.

Smoke thickening.

More bullets hitting the car steel.

She threw her emptied gun to the ground, useless. Marius had dragged Enjolras out of the car, blonde hair soaked with blood.

“He’s alive,” he said, breathless. “Unconscious.”

Of fucking course.

Dammit.

“Give me his gun.”

Marius fished a heavy black glock out of the motionless man’s coat. Motionless. Not dead. That mattered.

“Where’s Parnasse?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, stood up again, shot again. Her gaze fell on a man she had never seen before dragging an unconscious Montparnasse away from the car. She aimed without a second thought, aimed, fired, hit before he could raise his gun. She didn’t wait to look at his body hitting the street, was already about to take aim again.

“ _Cosette,_ the car is going to explode!”

She ducked, taking in Marius wide eyes, shocked but determined.

“Get Enjolras out of here, go,” she ordered,  _ordered_ and Marius followed, dragging Enjolras away, half stumbling, half walking.

The sound of gun fire stopped abruptly leaving only smoke, hisses and cracking. She cursed innerly, every word she could think of, looked over the hood of the car seeing another man dragging Montparnasse into the van. She fired and hit the man’s arm, fired again but the door was being closed, the car immediately driving off.

She stood up, firing shot after shot until there was a hand around her wrist pulling her back, back, back.

 

The air around them exploded in heat and smoke swept away over their heads when Marius pushed her down, hitting the hard street making her vision go black for a second.

 

When she opened her eyes she could only see the black car turning around the corner at the end of the street, then Marius’s arms were around her, holding her tight and he was coughing but _alive_. There was a ringing in her ears but the world came crushing back, the smell of blood in her nose and she never, never wanted to let go again but they had not time.

There were already cars slithering to a halt around them.

With shaking hands she pulled her phone out of her pocket, didn’t even have to look at the screen when she hit speed dial.

 

Agonizingly long seconds later the ringing on the other end of the line stopped.

She didn’t even give Jehan time to say anything.

 

“We got attacked. Enjolras is injured. Jehan, they’ve got Parnasse.”

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … did you think this would be just a chapter of Parnasse being sassy and Bahorel making tea? I mean, I could write ten chapters about that but I did promise showdown.  
> *whispers* _also all of this in five inch heels people_


	27. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC VI/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so emotional writing this I had to stop and watch Daredevil punching the shit out of people. Right… anyways, hope you enjoy the chapter. ♥

 

 

VI/VII

 

-Enjolras-

 

***

 

Enjolras’s head hurt.

It was the first thing he felt when he started to regain consciousness. The second thing was the soft surface he sank into when someone lowered him down carefully. Then the words reached his ears, muffled and slurred at first, then more clear.

“What happened?! Is he alright?!” What was unmistakably Grantaire’s voice sounded frantic, scared and for some reason Enjolras’s probably slightly mushed brain decided that it made him _angry._

He wasn’t dead, _clearly_ , he was very much alive if the pain was anything to go by so there was no reason to be worried or scared for anyone, especially not Grantaire. His voice was just like Enjolras had felt, a year back and he could have wanted the other man to feel that way too, as revenge, as compensation for all he had went through, maybe getting even a little bit of satisfaction out of it but it hit him like another blow to the head that he _didn’t_ want that.

 

Even after everything that happened, nothing had really changed, nothing that mattered. Grantaire mattered, as simple as that and Enjolras was still behaving like a stupid, scared idiot and it made him _angry._ At himself. 

 

He felt cold fingers against his neck, then his head, then Joly’s voice. “Enjolras? Can you hear me? Are you in pain?”

‘What do you think?’ he wanted to snap but his mouth felt weirdly dry, his throat hurt, so he decided against it. Instead he opened his eyes slowly to adjust to the seemingly burning light. Joly’s worried face in front of his was a little bit blurred at first, then clearer. When he looked over the man’s shoulder into the room his eyes took a moment to bring everything into focus as well but managed eventually. He tried to stand up but Joly pushed him back with a gentle but firm hand.

“Slow down, you were unconscious,” he said calmly and Enjolras had to blink to get to see his face clearly again. “You hit your head pretty badly, you very likely have a concussion…”

Enjolras only listened with one ear, already looking around the room again. It was distinctly familiar and after a moment he realized that they had to be in Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta’s flat, however he had gotten there. It didn’t look much different from the last and only time he had been here, about three years ago and it didn’t really matter, not at all, when his eyes finally came to rest on Grantaire. Bossuet had slung one arm around his shoulders, half holding him up, half holding him back. He looked shocked, wide-eyed and scared and Enjolras was so angry he felt his own hands starting to shake.

He interrupted Joly not even knowing what the other man was saying at the moment and not really caring about it anyway. “I’m fine, I had worse.” His voice felt odd in his throat, hoarse, but Joly’s mouth fell shut and he was too surprised to stop Enjolras from swinging his legs off the soda – which alright, explained the softness – and standing up.

He liked to imagine he had enough dignity to overplay the little stumble when he was suddenly on two feet again even though he did feel like throwing up. Only for a couple of seconds though, that had to count for something.

He looked up when the world had stopped spinning.

“You.”

Grantaire flinched at the tone of his voice which sounded more angry then Enjolras had anticipated but it didn’t keep him from crossing the room with one, two, three large steps until he was close enough to grab the other man by the front of his shirt. He ignored the shocked silence in the room and Grantaire’s increasingly confused expression and simply pulled him to the closest door slamming it shut behind them.

Enjolras let of Grantaire’s shirt, took a step back, just one to look at the man in front of him.

 

He had enough of being angry, he had spend a whole year being angry at everything and everyone – without even recognizing it for most of the time – but most of all, maybe even only, at himself. He was done with being angry and he was done with being scared.

 

“I love you,” he said and it wasn’t even difficult. On the contrary, it was easy, simple, like the most natural thing in the world, a universal truth, just like that. It was like everything stopped only to start again a second later but lighter, radiant, more at ease.

 

Grantaire looked at him like he had lost his mind. “What?”

 

“I love you,” Enjolras said again and then again, “I love you,” with a helpless shrug because he couldn’t help but smile, overwhelmed, but it didn’t really matter. “I love you.”

Grantaire blinked as if he was trying to figure out what was going on. He looked completely, utterly shocked. “You, you just –,” he said, stammered more, at a loss for words and a year ago Enjolras would have been thrilled by the sight of him not knowing what to say for once. “You don’t have to – I mean you just almost died, you don’t have to say that, you don’t mean –“

“Don’t.”

Grantaire’s mouth fell shut and he still looked shocked, confused but hadn’t looked away, hadn’t even _moved_ so Enjolras continued. “Don’t tell me how I feel. I  _know_ how I feel and I’ve been  _miserable_ without you.”

“I never meant you to be.” Grantaire’s voice was barely above a whisper and Enjolras wanted to shake him, pull him close, anything but he couldn’t move either, pinned on the spot by he intensity of blue and green eyes.

“I would have done the same,” he got out but Grantaire shook his head

“You wouldn’t have,” and he said it so quietly Enjolras almost didn’t understand the words, “not for the same reasons I did."

Before he could ask what he meant with that because he had no idea, not a single one, Grantaire continued, quickly, his voice chocked edging on desperate. “You would have done it because you had to, you would have done it for everyone, for Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Feuilly, even Marius and Jehan and everyone else. Because you’re that person and I’m not. I didn’t do it for them or because it was the right thing to do. I did it for you and I’d do it again if I had to and if I had to die, for real, I’d do it too without hesitation. I’d do it. For you.”

Enjolras could feel the erratic beating of his heart through his whole body, almost painful. He could feel the pounding in his head that left no space for thoughts or words except for, “I’m sorry.”

Grantaire visibly swallowed, his slower lip trembling. “What for?”

 

“For making you believe I could love you any less than you love me.”

 

A beat of silence passed.

Enjolras couldn’t have said what happened in the next moments if someone had asked him but suddenly the distance between them was gone, Grantaire’s arms slung around his neck, Enjolras’s around the other man’s waist and the embrace was all at once, overwhelming, desperate, fervent.  
He buried his face in Grantaire’s hair, taking deep breaths close to sobs, feeling the other man’s body against his, solid, real and alive, and the dampness against his own neck but he didn’t care about the tears when the world’s axis fell back into place and Enjolras couldn’t help but keep talking, saying anything that came to his mind, whispering into Grantaire’s hair.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you, I wanted to tell you, back in New York, I wanted to but then you – you died, I thought you died and I hadn’t told you and I regretted it, every day, every single day. But I got you back, I got you back and I still didn’t tell you when I should have. It should have been the first thing I should have told you. I didn’t know what to do, I don’t know, the reasonable thing would be to, to take this slow, ask for some time but I can’t I won’t, I love you.”

Grantaire moved first this time, pulling back just enough to crash their lips together and Enjolras hadn’t noticed he had closed his eyes, just closed his arms around Grantaire’s back, holding on and it wasn’t the most perfect kiss, too rushed and desperate and erratic, tears clinging to both of their cheeks but then again it was, perfect, whole, able to say more than three words and just the same. Enjolras buried one of his hands in Grantaire’s curls, soft between his fingers.

“I love you too,” he said somewhere in between kisses only a fraction away from Enjolras’s lips so he could feel the other man’s breath and he knew that, he had known, he didn’t know how long but all the time still hadn’t prepared him for hearing it said out loud. It was everything and Enjolras simply pressed their lips together again because even then the distance was too much. He wondered if it was ever going to be different again

At some point when Enjolras was sure that there was nothing else left in the room, no air, nothing else but the two of them holding on to each other Grantaire murmured something that Enjolras could only hear because he said it right against his lips.

“We really, really shouldn’t do this right now.”

“I disagree,” Enjolras countered immediately.

Grantaire laughed against his lips, it sounded a little too high, too chocked and was beautiful. “No, you, I mean you all, we got attacked.”

And that eventually stopped something in Enjolras mind that was too preoccupied before with being angry at himself, telling Grantaire who he felt and never letting Grantaire go again to care much about what happened. He remembered being in the car with Montparnasse, Cosette and Marius, looking out of the window, houses rushing by, then a hard stop, a black car speeding closer, a collision, a crash, a pain in his head then nothing.

Attacked.

“Shit.”

He stepped back, panic and fear rising up inside him but Grantaire grabbed his upper arm keeping him close. “Cosette and Marius are fine, a bit bruised but not worse than you.”

A weight fell from Enjolras shoulders but then he frowned. Cosette and Marius were fine. “What about Parnasse?”

Grantaire’s jaw clenched, his grip around Enjolras’s arm tightening. “We don’t know. They took him.”

“Goddammit,” Enjolras murmured and shook his head. Goddammit.

Grantaire was watching him closely and when he looked back into the other man’s eyes he could see his own anger, determination reflected by blue and green. He leaned forward pressing a last single, hard kiss against the other man’s mouth, then stepped around him. He took Grantaire’s hand in his when he opened the door pulling him back into the living room.

 

Everyone looked up stopping whatever they had been doing but Enjolras didn’t give anyone time to ask questions or worse, fall into awkward silence.

 

“Alright, what do we have, what happened?”

Cosette was the first regained her composure. “We got attacked, a car crashed into the back of ours, it was clearly planned to hit us. There was another one as soon as we were stopped, they opened fire. You lost conscious, Marius dragged you out before the car could explode, I held them at bay. They took Parnasse. I couldn’t stop them. He wasn’t dead the last I saw him but unconscious. I shot one of them, got another one at the arm but they got away. We brought you here, Jehan kept the police in check.”

As if on cue the door opened revealing an incredibly angry looking Jehan but Enjolras didn’t have a lot of time to be terrified about that before he was pulled away from Grantaire and into a bone crushing hug by Courfeyrac.

“Don’t you dare scare us like that again you asshole!”

“Courf, I can’t breathe.”

“I don’t fucking care!”

“Courf, let him breathe,” Combeferre said calmly and Enjolras threw a grateful look at him over the architect’s mob of hair that was currently partly stuck in Enjolras’s mouth and generally trying to burry his face under it. Courfeyrac did stop pressing the air out of his lungs when Combeferre laid a hand on his shoulder but he didn’t let go and Enjolras wouldn’t have wanted him to. And then Combeferre was holding them both and Enjolras could feel himself leaning into the arms around him and closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment.

He pulled back first though, reluctantly but they didn’t have time for more sentimentality as much as he might have liked to. God, he was getting soft.

 

Somehow it didn’t feel like a bad thing.

 

Jehan was talking rapidly to Cosette, Marius looked incredibly confused but didn’t let go of the young woman by his side the whole time. Enjolras didn’t bother waiting till they were finished.

“Why did they take Parnasse?”

The room fell silent, a tense silence when Jehan turned to him, their brown eyes dark with fury that wasn’t directed at Enjolras but that didn’t make it less terrifying. “Because,” they started attempting to sound calm, “I was stupid enough to think that Grantaire was the only link they could go after. I obviously protected Parnasse and both Patron-Minette and the Thénardiers know that.”

“What do they want from him?”

Jehan bit down onto his lip. “As much as they can get.”

“And how much is that?” Enjolras barely stopped himself from shouting gritting the words out between his teeth. He had the more than just vague feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer.

Eventually Jehan admitted reluctantly, “He knows where the Somnacin is.”

Going by the collective intake of breath in the room as well as Bahorel’s quiet ‘Oh shit,’ that was probably a good representation of what they were all thinking, Enjolras was sure it wasn’t only him not liking the answer. At all.

“He’s going to tell them,” he said.

Jehan shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

Enjolras let out a singular note of disbelieving laugher. “YES, I know that he will and it’s naïve to think that he won’t.” Jehan’s left eye twitched but Enjolras ignored them. “They want to know where the Somnacin is, that’s what they want. They’re not directly targeting us so of course he’s going to tell them what they want to save his own skin.”

“Not directly targeting us?” Courfeyrac repeated dryly.

“Of course,” Cosette answered before Enjolras could, “They were after Parnasse not us. If they had wanted us dead we would be.”

It said a lot about their business that those words were actually reassuring.

Enjolras was about to agree with her when a phone started ringing.

 

Every head in the room turned to him.

 

The phone rang again slightly muffled by the fabric of his coat. He pulled it out incredulously staring at the display of ‘unknown number’ until it rang again.

Jehan nodded at the phone in his hand Enjolras put on the speaker before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Monsieur Enjolras, it’s a pleasure,” a nasal, strident voice said amused and Enjolras immediately tensed.

He kept his voice calm, unimpressed though when he asked, “Who is there?”

“Really! After trailing us for so long I expected a little bit more. But well, I guess you have a lot of names to remember what with being a living legend and so on.”

“You shouldn’t sell yourself short.” Enjolras glanced at Grantaire who looked pale and tense, lips pressed together firmly, but resolute. He took a deep breath and was surprised how casual he managed to sound. “Monsieur Thénardier, I assume?”

There was a laugh at the other end of the line that like it had been taken straight from a bad horror movie. “Oh, you’re just hilarious, anyway, it’s actually not me calling. Your former forger insisted to … chat a little.”

Enjolras’s fingers tightened around the phone in his hand. “And why would you allow him to do that?”

“Oh really, we are not  _monsters_ and he was so helpful. Speaking of which, you can tell Prouvraire that their little plan is not going to work because we already have their precious Somnacin in our hands, the real one. Well say eighty percent, it’s still getting loaded.”  
Jehan paled. They pulled their phone out so quickly Enjolras would have been impressed in any other situation but he forced himself to concentrate on the conversation happening instead.

The man laughed again. “I’ll pass you over.”

There was a brief silence and Enjolras let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding when Montparnasse’s voice sounded through the phone.

“Enjolras?”

“Yes, I’m here. Are you alright?”

A throaty laugh that sounded more like a cough. “Peachy. Just about to be dead, you know.”

“You’re not,” Enjolras said as if it would matter, as if he would know. He looked at the faces in the room, expressions verging from shocked to upset and Montparnasse laughed again.

“Yeah, right. If they don’t do it one of you will.”

“We wouldn’t.” At least there was a thing he could be sure of.

“Right, if I do make it out of this I tell you I’m on the next fucking ship out of here, I’d take a plane, it’s faster but you know how much I hate those.” Enjolras frowned something nagging at the back of his mind that wasn’t confusion but the other man continued. “Gonna go to some place nice, calm, Rosamunde Pilcher style, you know. I’ll send you a postcard.”

“I take that as a promise.”

Montparnasse snorted. “Sure thing.”

“Alright, enough chit chat,” the other voice cut in. “Relax, Monsieur Enjolras, we are probably not going to kill him, that would just make a mess. Also he’s useful. Would be sad if he’d end up in a dumpster like the one he came from. Alright, nice talk, we have places to be. Cheerio!”

Before Enjolras could say anything else the line was dead. He stared at the phone until Jehan put their own phone down again. “I can’t get a hold of anyone guarding the Somnacin, and no one of the reinforcements I send as well. We have to leave. Now.”

“Wait.”

“There’s no _time_ , Enjolras!”

“And what do you want to do? You know that if you can’t reach any of those guards, wherever the hell you thought you had the Somnacin protected, they’re dead. The Thénardiers have what they wanted and you bet they’re trying to clear off as fast as possible.” He didn’t mean to be cruel but it was the truth.

Jehan slumped back in their wheelchair a stray curl of red hair falling in their face. They didn’t bother brushing it away. “This is it then?”

The silence in the room was defeating, no one answered. There was nothing comforting or soothing that could have been said, nothing Enjolras could think of. But he couldn’t help replaying the whole conversation in his mind, something about Montparnasse had seemed off, he had talked absolute _nonsense_ , it didn’t add up, not at all.

“Wait a second.”

 

Enjolras startled when Bahorel spoke up. Everyone turned to the man who sat on the floor next to the couch. “Parnasse doesn’t hate planes.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Feuilly mumbled but Bahorel had already jumped onto his feet.

“Come on, _guys_. He’s a fucking diva who would fly business class instead of walking five minutes. A ship? Hell no.”

“He was trying to tell us something,” Enjolras realized and Bahorel grinned.

“Exactly. And it’s fucking obvious, isn’t it. He said he’d be out with the next ship. If they want to get away quickly and far with all the Somnacin they’ll need a bloody big ship. And the closest port from here is –”

“Le Havre,” Cosette said immediately. “It’s bigger and closer than Calais, about two hours from Paris if you’re fast.”

“There have to be like what hundreds of ships there,” Feuilly cut in, “How are we supposed to know which one they’re on before they take off?”  
Bahorel reached out to ruffle the smaller man’s hair still grinning. “I mean I’ll be the first one to tell you I hate the guy but he knows his literature, man. Rosamunde Pilcher? Most of that is set down in Cornwall but they wouldn’t get far if they took a ferry or some shit to Plymouth, I mean where do you go from Plymouth? But, some of the movies are also filmed in Dorset and Hampshire, so I’ll bet you they’re clearing out the next container they can get their hands on to in Portsmouth and off they go.”

Enjolras blinked completely taken aback but he was sure he didn’t look as shocked as Feuilly. “Why the hell do you know so much about Rosamunde fucking Pilcher?” he asked disbelievingly and Bahorel shrugged. He wasn’t even blushing when he simply said, “I like romance and happy endings, okay? Sue me.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Feuilly breathed out and he could have just said ‘I love you’, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Bahorel winked at him.

 

Musichetta who had been quiet up until that point stood up, walked over to the wardrobe next to the entrance door and pulled two large black handguns out of the top drawer without a second of hesitation.

“Then what the hell are we still doing here?”

 

***


	28. Part IV. Les Amis de l’ABC VII/VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter you all, I researched so much about boats because I know like… nothing about boats so please bear with me. I hope you enjoy the last chapter and thank you for reading, commenting, leaving kudos and sticking to a WIP for that long like I know how nerve-wracking that can be, it really means the world to me. So I hope you enjoyed it, enjoy the last chapter and I’ll stop being sentimental now and leave you to it. And hey. Thanks.

 

 

VII/VII

 

-Enjolras & Grantaire -

 

 

***

 

L.E. H.A.V.R.E. - F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

***

 

 

Enjolras couldn’t keep his leg from bouncing nervously up and down from the moment they had gotten into the van. He tried not to pay too much attention to the breakneck speed Bahorel drove the car with but it was kind of difficult and after more than an hour of overtaking manoeuvres bordering on suicidal he kind of wished anyone else would be driving. He would even prefer _Marius_ what was definitely a sign of ascending madness.

“Are we there yet?” Courfeyrac asked for the sixth or seventh or twentieth time. Enjolras had lost count.

“Soon,” Joly mumbled from where he typed furiously on the notebook balancing on his knees. His small round glasses constantly slid down his nose so he absentmindedly pushed them back up again every other minute. Feuilly sat next to him continuously pointing things out that Enjolras had no clue of and making an intense concentrated face.

“Do we have a plan here?” Courfeyrac inquired carefully after another while of silence. “Any plan?”

“We’re trying to limit the options they have,” Joly started, eyes not leaving the screen, “but we can’t get access to the databases of the private ships which seem the most logical way to go because they don’t need to register to leave.”

Cosette sighed heavily and opened the black monstrosity that was her handbag and without even a minute of searching pulled out four portable radio devices. Enjolras wasn’t even surprised.

“We have to split up,” he said even though he hated the thought, “Joly and Feuilly keep trying to find something useful, the rest of us will have to spread out. It’s not the best of plans but we kind of don’t have any other option.”

No one argued and silence fell again, not any less tense than before.

Enjolras hadn’t even realized he had closed his eyes trying to block out the pain lingering behind his temples until something faintly brushed his leg. When he opened his eyes Grantaire had sat down next to him just close enough that their legs were touching.

Enjolras reached out and took his hand.

The other man startled slightly at the touch but from the corner of his eye Enjolras could see him smiling, just a little, before dark curls fell in front of his face like a black curtain when he ducked his head.

From the other side of the van Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow.

Enjolras only nodded.

It was enough for the architect to smile.

The car came to a stop abruptly and the grip of Grantaire’s hand tightened around Enjolras’s.

There was no window through which they could have seen what was going on, only two small tinted panes at the back but in the front Musichetta seemed to say something to whoever had stopped them and not before long the car was driving again, slower this time, onto what Enjolras suspected was a parking space at the marina.

The small window to the driver’s cab opened. “Alright, we’re in, what’s the plan?” Musichetta asked. Her ringlets were tied in a tight bun on top of her head so they wouldn’t fall into her face.

Enjolras didn’t mind Cosette taking over answering. “Feuilly and Joly are going to stay here trying to find more information and tell us when there’s something useful. The rest of us will split up to search the docks.”

“It has to be a bigger ship,” Joly chimed in, “with enough space for some cubic metres of a highly sensitive chemical so leave out the smaller once.”

“Someone else should stay here if something happens,” Feuilly added.

“Can do,” Bahorel said. “But we should go for front and back cover you know, in case.”

Marius sat up straight. “I’ll do it.” He looked determined and Enjolras wondered where the young man had gone that had fainted at the mere sight of a handgun only a couple of years ago. He thought he would have felt more proud but for some reason the realization was oddly saddening.

Cosette threw one of the radios at Grantaire who caught it with one hand and another one at Combeferre wordlessly deciding the groups like that. Grantaire squeezed Enjolras’s hand before he let go of it when the car stopped and they stepped out one after another except for Joly and Feuilly as well as Marius and Bossuet who looked incredibly unfazed for someone who had neither the training nor the experience with guns or anything like that. He had insisted on coming with them and the way he looked absolutely unconcerned trusting in them doing what they did was an incredibly reassuring sight.

Enjolras stepped outside and was immediately hit by a cool if harsh breeze and the smell of sea. At the sight of only one of the long piers with at least six or seven docks filled with ships from small to big his stomach plummeted. Even if they weren’t too late there couldn’t be enough to find the ship they were looking for.

If it was even there.

Still.

He shoved the thought aside forcefully and was about to follow the others, Musichetta ahead, when someone unexpectedly grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat and held him back.

Before Enjolras could fully comprehend what was happening Cosette had pulled four rather large black objects out of her handbag and dropped them into Enjolras’s luckily big enough coat pocket.

Enjolras didn’t have a lot of experiences with explosives but he recognized a grenade when he saw one.

“They’re time fused,” Cosette explained brusquely, “Five minutes.”

All he managed to get out a strangled, “What?”

Cosette held on to his sleeve tightly. “Look at the mess all of this made. The lives taken and the lives destroyed. I am not in the position to make a decision that has nothing to do with me, directly. But you are. And I trust you to do the right one.” She let go of him and started following the others without another word.

Enjolras looked up to see Grantaire, ahead of them but even from the distance Enjolras could see that his brows were furrowed in concern. He ordered his feet to move following Cosette, head reeling and the weight in his pocket twice as heavy, and ran after the others. When he had caught up with Grantaire the other man didn’t ask anything.

He didn’t know how much he had seen but Enjolras wouldn’t have known an answer anyway.

There were more pressing matters now. More pressing than the grenades pressed against his side. It was a relief to shove the thought aside when Musichetta assigned them a dock, Combeferre and Courfeyrac another one and they ran into the different directions.

His mind concentrated gratefully on running and the ships they were passing and Grantaire next to him.

“Nothing here,” Courfeyrac’s voice cracked through the radio in Grantaire’s hand after a while when they had reached the end of their dock as well having seen nothing noticeable.

“Same,” he answered, voice strained and tense.

They were about to make their way back again when Enjolras stopped. He saw the person on the deck of the last ship in the row, a towering gray thing, only from the corner of his eye before something flew past his head dangerously close causing Grantaire to curse and drag him down at the same time pulling out his gun. Enjolras realized within a second that there was no possible cover anywhere near, the shooter on the yacht in a much better position than theirs. He grabbed the gun from Grantaire’s hand and shot without thinking, aiming within a second before the man got a chance to do the same. He supposed he had hit at least something right because the man fell or ducked, stopped firing back.

He was on his feet and running a moment later only hearing Grantaire curse again behind him.

The ship was casting off, Enjolras could hear the sound of a motor, departing from the small bridge leading to the deck metre by metre. He didn’t pause to think before running, estimating the distance for a split second, two metres, three metres, and jumped.

He tried to soften the fall by rolling over as soon as his feet touched solid ground again disregarding the pain erupting in his left ankle.

When he looked up another man came out of the door to the superstructure, a confused look on his face and a gun in his hand and even as Enjolras was about to raised his own he knew, for the longest moment of his life, that he wouldn’t be fast enough.

 

Something black, squared hit the man right in the face making him stumble back, his head hitting the door frame. He slumped down, the radio broken in a cluster of pieces around his feet.

 

Enjolras turned around to Grantaire breathing heavily, fury as well as utter relief open on the other man’s face who was only a step behind him.

“That. Was the _stupidest_ thing you have ever done,” he rasped and Enjolras couldn’t help but let out a single note of stunned, bewildered laughter.

“Likewise.”

 

  
***

 

 

That man was going to be the death of him.

It wasn’t the first time Grantaire had that thought but it came back rather forcefully when Enjolras laughed, still kneeling on the ground, gun in one hand and golden curls falling into his face and Grantaire shouldn’t even think about how beautiful he was right then, not when he was supposed to be utterly, utterly mad at the stupid, reckless idiot.

He turned away to collect himself for a moment estimating the ship in the meantime, about 40 metres long, one storey superstructure, one large enough dinghy lifeboat on the left. Nothing special or fancy. No other guards up on the deck except for the one lying unconsciously by the door and the other one on the left side next to the railing who had obviously passed out from the pain, blood soaking the ground and the fabric of his shirt at the right upper arm where Enjolras's bullet had hit him.

Enjolras stood up and Grantaire didn’t overhear the small, suppressed hiss. He reached for the other man’s upper arm steadying him until he stood safely.

“Are you alright?”

Enjolras waved him off. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t really buy that, at all, but bit his tongue. If he was really hurt even Enjolras wouldn’t be stupid enough to not say anything and risk everything.

He held out the gun to Grantaire and pulled out his own from the inner pocket of his coat. Grantaire took it automatically and wondered if no one had ever told Enjolras that red really wasn’t the most inconspicuous colour. Probably not because it looked far too good on him.

 

Goddammit, he needed to focus.

 

He walked over to the unconscious body by the door, daring to take a look inside. There was an open, empty lobby-like room and a staircase leading down into the hull of the ship.

“How many more do you think there are?” Enjolras asked. Earlier when they had been on the dock Grantaire could have sworn the whole ship had been deserted but well, he had obviously been wrong about that one.

He shrugged. “Don’t know but I somehow doubt these two are the only guards.”

Enjolras nodded and looked down at the pieces of the radio. “Did you manage to…,” he trailed off leaving the sentence hanging in the air.

“Sorry, I was kind of busy not letting you get shot.”

“Not complaining,” the other man retorted and that was that. They were on their own on a ship that headed for the high sea with god knew how many people trying to shoot them if they got the chance.

 

Perfect.

 

They pulled the bodies away from the door and out of sight, improvised but effectively tying them up with one of the man’s belt and jacket. The one that Enjolras had hit was definitely alive and breathing, a flesh wound on his right arm that wasn’t pretty but also not life-threatening.

Grantaire wiped his hands on his pants when they were done.

“Tell me you have at least the tiniest bit of a plan here.”

Enjolras bit down onto his lip and said, “Find the Somnacin and Thénardier.”

“So what you’re saying is you don’t have the tiniest bit of a plan.”

The other man shrugged but he looked determined. “We’ll have to make it work without one then I guess.”

 

Grantaire wondered, not for the first time, why he had to go and fall for a maniac. People warned you about the bad boys, the ones in leather jackets with scary motorbikes, ‘beware, they only want the one thing child!’, no one seemed to deem it necessary to warn you about the crazy, beautiful idealist in red coats, even though, there probably had been a few people along the way warning about red coats but Grantaire doubted anyone could have ever imagined someone like Enjolras.

He also doubted that any warning would have helped in the end.

 

“We don’t know how many people are down there, we should just take the lifeboat and leave, notify the others, I think we _know_ which ship we were looking for now.”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, if they find the guards they will know something went wrong and find a way to disappear. We can’t risk losing them.”

“I don’t know if you noticed but it’s a bloody big ship. Besides, what are you going to do? Negotiate?”

The other man snorted inelegantly. “I doubt that’s a possibility. But everything’s better than getting killed or risking the chance for them to outplay us. Again.” His expression turned pained as if he couldn’t really believe the next words he was saying. “And they have to have Parnasse somewhere.”

Grantaire let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew Enjolras knew that he was not going to argue. What else could he say anyway. Enjolras wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave Enjolras. Over and done.

“Why do you have to be that person,” he mumbled half-heartedly annoyed under his breath knowing very well there was no real complaint behind it.

 

The smile that turned up the corner of Enjolras’s mouth made it all worth it.

 

“You love it,” he said. The way he said it though, almost cheekily, easy, after everything that happened but still with an underlying seriousness left Grantaire with no other thing in his mind to respond but, “Yeah. I do.”

Enjolras’s eyes widened in surprise and at once he stepped forward, pulling Grantaire in by his neck and the kiss that followed was short, hard and utterly unexpected so that Grantaire’s heart stopped for a moment. It was over as fast as it had started.

Enjolras turned around without another word but a small blush on his cheeks and Grantaire followed him into the boat. His mind cleared quickly at the almost eerie silence as they descended the stairs into the hull, both of their guns raised, ready.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs Grantaire could hear a single set of footsteps nearing. Enjolras raised one finger to his lips.

Grantaire rolled his eyes but stayed where he was.

The man rounding the corner didn’t expect to have the butt of gun rammed into his face and Enjolras caught him as he slumped down before he could hit the ground and pulled him back up the stairs. Grantaire didn’t wait for Enjolras’s order when he took the man’s gun from its holster and quickly tied his hands together behind his back.

Enjolras carefully looked around the corner. “Corridor, one door each side, one at the end, looks like it goes further there.”

“Well, then let’s get this over with,” he murmured and after effectively making the man unable to either move or scream stepped down the last stairs.

The corridor was long, about 20 metres with only two doors, none of them providing any cover.

Great.

Enjolras’s didn’t look that thrilled either but there wasn’t exactly anything else they could do. They stopped at the doors, Grantaire right, Enjolras left.

He nodded and Enjolras reached for the handle taking a deep breath. The door didn’t open. Locked.

Before Grantaire could turn to the door on his side though it flew open revealing a thin, tousled haired man into whose eyes Grantaire had last looked over a year ago in a dream he would have rather liked to forget.

Babet’s gun was pretty much in his face and Grantaire sighed.

“My, my, are you still alive?” The man said, his voice was shrill and sounded so reluctantly impressed that Grantaire would have laughed under different circumstances.

He knew that he should have probably hated the man for being the reason for the worst year of Grantaire’s life but somehow he didn’t. He wasn’t the problem, he didn’t _matter,_ he had always been just a rather snippy, unsatisfied thief and not more than a decent architect.

Before Enjolras could do anything stupid, like shooting the poor, sad man in the head or something, Grantaire grabbed Babet’s arm twisting back his wrist before he could fire his gun and ended the whole thing with a well placed roundhouse kick that hurt like hell but did its job.

 

Enjolras stared at him disbelievingly but didn’t say anything. He might have looked like he was about to kiss Grantaire again but maybe he was only imagining that. Which was probably better because he already had a hard time concentrating like that.

 

After dealing with an unconscious Babet - and Grantaire hoped he wouldn’t have to knock out a lot more people because his hand wouldn’t thank him - they reached the end of the corridor where it branched out into two more, shorter ones to each side.

Enjolras nodded for Grantaire to stay where he was, keeping an eye on the door in the middle as well as the one in the right corridor while Enjolras carefully moved to the left.

“They have codes,” he heard the other man say but the words were followed by a clicking sound of a handle pushed down and the quiet opening of a door.

He glanced over his shoulder at Enjolras, gun in one hand as he pushed the door open further still pressed against the wall.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Enjolras peered around the corner and stepped forward.

 

If Grantaire had been standing two steps closer he might have been able to do something.

 

Like that he was just about to turn around to follow him, still keeping an eye on the other doors but all he see the door slamming shut behind Enjolras.

 

 

***

 

 

Enjolras stepped into the dark room, no window, no light except that from the floor falling inside.

Before he realized what happened though the door behind him fell shut but instead of darkness light flickered on, artificial and unpleasant.

Someone punched the gun out of his hand and the blink of an eye later there was an arm around his neck, not pressing tight enough to suffocate him but hard enough to hurt, and the barrel of a gun pressed against the sight of his head.

He winced but tried not to move, his heart beating too fast in his chest, breaths coming short. 

There were two - three with whoever was currently not really but almost suffocating Enjolras - people in the room.

A tall and lanky older man whose face had a scary similarity to that of rat and Montparnasse who looked a bit bruised, dried blood in his hair, hands tied together behind his back as well as utterly, utterly bored.

Well, at least _he_ was alright.

“Monsieur Enjolras,” rat-man said and Enjolras immediately recognized the nasal voice he had heard on the phone only a couple of hours ago. “How nice to meet you in person. May I introduce you to Claquesous,” he gestured at the person behind Enjolras, “Another valued member of Patron-Minette but I doubt Montparnasse thought of mentioning him.”

“What do you want?” Enjolras got out and the man sighed theatrically.

“Right to the point, well, if you insist. Well, the reason you’re not dead, _yet,_ is that I’d like to make you an offer. You and your _boyfriend._ ” Enjolras tensed. “You with your abilities could be a very valuable asset for us and we for you considering our… newly found circumstances. Parnasse here was already very open for negotiation.”

Enjolras was very close to rolling his eyes. As if that was a surprise and he wouldn't say just about anything to save his skin. He had just thought that the Thénardier man would be smart enough to know that he would be gone the moment they untied his hands. Honestly, he really had expected someone more… sophisticated in general.

The man facing him seemed more like the bad caricature of a person than anything else.

Enjolras didn’t voice the thought though.

Instead he said dryly, “If you are going to have a change of heart where you decide to stop being power-hungry, deluded assholes I might consider but I highly doubt it so, thanks, but no thanks. Over my dead body.” Every word hurt but it still felt damn good to get out. 

Enjolras was pretty sure Montparnasse sighed but hell, what had he expected.

Thénardier sighed too. “Well, we can do that. Shame though.”

 

“Hm, hm,” Montparnasse coughed pointedly the moment the arm around Enjolras's neck tightened to a degree where it started to get almost too much. 

 

Enjolras could even feel the person behind him turning their head into the man’s direction.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“And why not?” Thénardier asked, amusement in his voice that came from the feeling of superiority. “He made it quite clear he is not going to be of any use for us.”

“Which was to be expected,” Montparnasse shrugged exaggeratedly as if he had to compensate for not being able to use his hands somehow. “But see, the problem is -,” dramatic pause, “- unfortunately I am not _completely_ indifferent towards him even though he does have the self-preservation skills of a lemming. Also I feel personally insulted, especially by you Claquesous, how long have we known each other? Because I thought you’d know me but you obviously don’t because you forgot a very, very vital thing.”

And suddenly his arms weren’t behind his back anymore and when Enjolras blinked a thin blade had pierced into the arm right in front of his face, another flew past his ear and then the hand pressing the gun against his temple dropped as the man behind him screamed. Enjolras turned around immediately, punched him square in the jaw and as he went down a second time in the neck ignoring the blood then spun around to Montparnasse.

“Always check me for knives,” the black-haired man drawled lazily holding a third blade to Thénardier’s neck drawing a thin line of blood.

“Are you fucking _insane_?!” Enjolras got out, loudly, adrenaline punching the heartbeat through his veins. He breathed. Breathing was good. 

Montparnasse shrugged. “Possibly. Yet here we are.”

Thénardier whimpered.

“Don’t kill him,” Enjolras ordered and for the first time Montparnasse’s eyes snapped away from the man at his feet and to Enjolras.

“What is wrong with you?”

“ _You_ ask _me_ that?” He burst out slightly hysterical then tried to take a deep calming breath. “Just, don’t.”

The other man pursed his lips but seemed to comply.

Enjolras turned around again to shove away the man lying in front of the door and when it didn't open realized with a plummeting feeling he didn't have the code. He might have considered about panicking again right there.

“Relax,” Montparnasse said flippantly. Enjolras wanted to punch him. Deep breaths. “There are only like five other people on this boat and if you got until here I’m sure R can handle the ones you didn’t take care of.” He pressed the thin knife a little harder against Thénardier’s throat. “Code?”

The man immediately choked out four numbers that Enjolras punched into the keypad next to the door and as soon as it swung open Enjolras’s face was pressed into soft black curls when Grantaire held him so tight he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t mind in the slightest.

“Thank god, you’re alright,” Grantaire breathed against his neck.

Montparnasse cleared his throat. “As heart-warming as this is, may I ask what we are going to do now?”

Enjolras held on to Grantaire just a second longer, half because he didn’t want to let go and half out of spite then turned around marching over to the kneeling, frightened mess of a man in front of Montparnasse’s feet.

 

He was a sad sight and Enjolras wondered if what he felt was disappointment having expected someone more… just _more._ But maybe that was what you got when people who were nothing but the power they wanted when they were reduced to just themselves.

 

He felt a lot less hatred than he had expected, only pity and disgust at the things the man in front of him could be held responsible for. Nothing more.

“Where is the Somnacin?” He asked simply, coldly letting a warning swing in his voice that wasn’t necessary because the man immediately rushed to answer.

“The-there’s a staircase in the other room into the hull, the code’s 2450, pl-please.”

Whatever he was planning on pleading for Enjolras didn’t plan on hearing it. He looked at Montparnasse and nodded. “Don’t kill him.”

He rolled his eyes but lowered the knife just to snake an arm around Thénardier's neck, holding the struggling body with much more strength than one would expect from the slender, almost delicate looking man until he stopped moving gliding into unconsciousness.

Montparnasse let go of Thénardier letting him fell to the ground unceremoniously and pocketed his knife after cleaning the bloody blade on the other man’s sleeve.

“Satisfied?” He asked but Enjolras choose to ignore him.

“They didn’t check you for your knives?” Grantaire frowned. 

Enjolras realized for the first time how thin the blades were as well as the handles, easily to hide close to the body. 

“Only for guns," Montparnasse shrugged, "As if I’m that barbarian.”

“And you didn’t think of maybe doing something earlier?”

His expression darkened. “I might be good but even I can’t take out half a dozen people single-handedly.” He turned to Enjolras. “And now?”

Enjolras bit down onto his lip.

 

It should be easy right then, right? Contact the others, make sure Thénardier and everyone else would be stuck behind bars for the rest of their existence. Turn around, move on, go on, just like that.

 

Something was nagging at the back of his mind. Something he knew wasn’t going to go away.

“Bring everyone up on the deck and get the lifeboat ready. Make sure they can’t put up a fight and _don’t_ kill anyone.”

The last bit was directed at Montparnasse who frowned. “And what about you?”

Enjolras didn’t answer. He breathed in and met Grantaire’s eyes that looked skeptically but he still simply said, “Alright.” He nodded, his eyes saying ‘Go, I'll take care of it’ and Enjolras hoped he could see the gratefulness he felt in return.

He turned around rushing out of the room before he could think about it twice.

The door at the other side of the corridor opened when he entered the code revealing another room similar to the last one but with the staircase in the back.

It was colder as well.

His heart was hammering in his chest, in the quiet at every step he could feel the pulse in his ears, his throat, chest, whole body as he descended the stairs one by one until he stood breathless in the middle of a room that should have been dark, pitch-black but wasn’t.

The parallel rows and rows of test tubes stacked in pallets on top of each other were filled with a gold, shimmering liquid.

It was _glowing_

Glowing warmly, softly and golden illuminating the room with a shine that was so ethereal that Enjolras’s breath got stuck in his throat.

It was beautiful.

And it was so terrifying that the sight made his skin crawl and shivers run down his spine.

He stood in the room, so golden, glowing and beautiful containing what had influenced, _made_ Enjolras for his whole life and the only thing he could think was that it was the most unnatural thing he had ever seen.

 

An opportunity.

 

In the end for nothing more than to tamper with the human mind, soul. Freedom.

Whether for good or for bad.

 

The weight in the pocket of his coat seemed to try pulling him down, down through the bottom of the ship and to the ground of the sea.

 

***

 

 

“What the hell is taking him so long?” Montparnasse snarled when they heaved another unconscious body into the lifeboat. They had taken care of another man who had been steering the ship and a small, round woman with crazy hair and long fingernails who Grantaire now knew was Madame Thénardier. She had screeched loudly and high-pitched until Montparnasse had taken care of that too.

Grantaire only had to remind him twice not to kill anyone which was well, not as bad as it sounded.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said and took the feet of the last guard waiting for Montparnasse to help him with the rest.

Instead the other man crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Grantaire sighed. “Listen, I trust Enjolras to know what he’s doing.”

He knew it had something to do with whatever Cosette had given him earlier. He didn’t see what it had been but Enjolras had seemed shocked and whatever he had to do on his own Grantaire was going to let him instead of holding him back. There was nothing that could happen to him. All people that were trying to shot him were unmoving on a neat pile.

“Well, it’s nothing new that you’re both idiots,” Montparnasse scoffed and Grantaire was on his feet a second later grabbing him by his shirt shoving him unapologetically into the railing.

The other man overplayed his wince with a lopsided grin. “Careful. That’s mulberry silk.”

Grantaire pressed him up against the railing a little harder. “ _Listen_ ,” he snapped, “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done but it doesn’t give you the excuse to be an ignorant asshole. This is not about you or anyone, this is about doing what’s right and Enjolras has been doing that a lot longer than I and especially _you_. So shut up or you will be the next unconscious body on that pile.”

He waited challenging Montparnasse to say anything else but he didn’t so Grantaire stepped back. He was feeling a lot better all of sudden.

“Careful or you’ll become an idealist after all,” the other man sassed but he smiled a little and got back to helping Grantaire drag the next person into the boat.

“You’re terrible.”

“I try my best, thank you. Wouldn’t want to be mistaken for boring.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “You’re reading Rosamunde Pilcher, Parnasse. That’s literally a hundred times the same story. What about that doesn’t scream boring?”

Montparnasse shrugged. “I just like them, okay? Besides, look who’s talking. You figured it out or you wouldn’t be here.”

Grantaire suppressed a grin. “I didn’t. Bahorel did.”

Montparnasse stared at him for a second then his expression turned into a scowl. “Goddammit.”

Grantaire was about to laugh at his scandalized tone but right in that moment Enjolras barged onto the deck, breathless and a look in his eyes that was made Grantaire tense all over again.

“We have to leave, _now,_ ” he called and because Montparnasse already looked like he was about to protest again Grantaire simply shoved him so he fell into the boat then climbed after him. Enjolras was the last and as soon as he was next to Grantaire he turned to start the mechanism that lowered the boat into the water.

“What the hell is going on?” Montparnasse asked sharply but Enjolras ignored him.

He looked slightly panicked.

“Does anyone know how to drive this thing?”

Well, Grantaire thought, good question.

Montparnasse rolled his eyes but stepped over the unconscious body of one of the guards to the control panel. “You know, you missed out if you’ve never been to Saint Tropez, gorgeous that one, amazingly lots of rich people with yachts.”

“Just go,” Enjolras snapped and despite the nasty look Montparnasse shot him he started the motor.

Grantaire simply sat down trying to breathe calmly as the wind tangled in his hair, cold and salty and fresh.

Enjolras looked a little greenish around the nose and Grantaire was about to ask if he was alright when not one, not two but three, four explosions went off in quick succession, booming, loud and startling. He spun around seeing smoke rising from the bow of the ship, the wave catching them a couple of seconds later but they were too far already for any real impact, just a shaking of the boat once, up, down, then nothing.

The ship was sinking, bit by bit, slowly into the water and smoke.

The motor of their boat turned off.

“What the fuck did you do?” Montparnasse’s eyes were wide and Grantaire didn’t remember ever seeing such an expression of shock on the other man’s face. It would have been quite fascinating if he wasn’t shouting that loudly. “Are you out of your mind? Am I the fucking only one who missed the memo where everyone agreed to throw their brains over board? You just blew up the only source of-”

Enjolras lunged forward and squarely decked him with a single punch to the jaw hard enough to for Grantaire to hear something cracking and for Montparnasse to slump down like a marionette without strings.

Enjolras grimaced. “That was overdue.”

He winced when he stretched his fingers.

Grantaire stared at him, mouth hanging open but he just couldn’t _help_ it, he must be insane, he was definitely insane because that should _not_ have been as attractive as it was and they had just faced death a couple of times and blown up a ship and what not.

It took far too long for his common sense to make a comeback and to close his mouth.

He swallowed and took a deep breath trying to remember how words worked. “Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t have done that but you do know none of us knows how to drive a boat.”

Enjolras blinked. Once. Twice.

And then he started laughing, bright and unguarded, perplexed and the sound of it seemed to rush through Grantaire’s body together with the startling, shocking feeling of relief when he realized at once the one thing that mattered.

 

It was over.

 

Grantaire smiled.

 

  
  
***

  
_2 weeks later_

 

P.A.R.I.S. - F.R.A.N.C.E.

 

***

 

 

Enjolras stood in the almost empty apartment, just a single box and a still wrapped up couch to his right, and looked out of the window when the door behind him opened.

He didn’t turn around until Combeferre stepped up next to him.

“Do you think leaving for Rome of all places is a good idea if you already miss me so much you had to come and say goodbye a second time?” He joked easily when the other man didn't say anything and Combeferre huffed.

“The plane leaves at 2, it’s 10am and Courf is still sleeping.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but grin. “And you’re too nervous to sleep?”

The blush on the other man’s cheeks was barely noticeable but he did look a little more bashful. “Not funny.”

Enjolras suppressed a laugh and looked out of the window for a moment before turning back to his friend more seriously. “He’s going to say yes and we both know that.”

Combeferre looked down but Enjolras could see his smile before his expression turned serious as well.

“That’s not why I’m here though,” he said and instead of continuing pulled something out of the inner pocket of his coat.

Enjolras froze when he saw what it was.

He could hear his own voice sounding strained, rough. “What’s that for? One last trip down memory lane?”

Combeferre twirled the test tube with the golden liquid between his fingers. “Somnacin when it’s prepared to be used for lucid dreaming is changed and therefore irrevocably contaminated. Every last bit of pure Somnacin was on that ship. Except for this.” He held up the test tube, gold reflecting in his glasses. “I found it when we went to safe house where Jehan had kept it, just to see if there were still some useful things after all. It must have slipped out a retainer or something, I don’t know. But there’s nothing else left.”

He looked at Enjolras, brown eyes warm and earnest and reached for his hand. Enjolras fingers closed around the test tube automatically.

“Why are you giving me this?”

Combeferre didn’t let go of his hand.

“When you asked us, Courfeyrac and me, to come with you, leave Paris, do this together with you we were young but we were old enough to know what life we were choosing. You never were. This was your life from the start and the first time you could have decided someone else did it for you. And I don’t know what exactly happened on that ship but you were forced to make a decision quickly and you did. I’m not saying it was the wrong one. I'm just saying you didn't have the time you deserved. I’m giving you this because I know that if you go to Jehan they could make it work. But you don’t have to. No one should make a decision like that in a second. So, I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a chance to have the opportunity do it like everyone else would. For once.”

“I -,” Enjolras started and stopped not knowing what to say.

Combeferre smiled. “It’s alright. You have all time in the world.” He squeezed Enjolras’s hand once then let go and turned around smiling but without anything else to say leaving Enjolras alone with a test tube in his hand and a wrapped out couch in the apartment he planned on staying in, longer than just a couple of days after years of doing just the opposite.

He looked out of the window.

 

Paris was beautiful in spring.

 

Fingers still closed around the object in his hand he fished his phone out of the pocket of his jeans with the other hand, dialling the number on top of his list.

It rang two times before someone picked up and Enjolras didn’t even wait for an answer before he asked, “Hey, do you want to go get breakfast somewhere?”

Twenty minutes later he stood on the left side of Pont Neuf, waiting.

He leaned forward to look down onto the water of the Seine slowly flowing along. The sun was warming his face, chattering people passed him not paying much attention to anything but the city and Enjolras realized that for the first time, he didn’t remember for how long, maybe in forever, he felt calm.

Calm and at ease, no panic, no tension, only content. And happiness. And hope.

 

He pulled the test tube out of his pocket.

 

He had made plans all his life that had served him well, brought him far.

When he looked back on those years he realized that in the end the best decisions he had made weren’t those planned out.

Instead it had been leaving Paris in the dead of the night with Courfeyrac and Combeferre when he was eighteen and choosing Feuilly and saving Parnasse and trusting Jehan without a second thought.

 

It had been kissing Grantaire in a half-lit hotel room in Brussels.

 

Enjolras uncorked the test tube and watched as the gold liquid disappeared through air and into the water then he put the empty one back into the pocket of his coat without an ounce of regret.

 

He didn’t know how much later Grantaire appeared at his side. His eyes were bright when he pressed a kiss high on Enjolras’s cheekbone.

“Hey there.”

Enjolras smiled and immediately intertwined his fingers with Grantaire’s enjoying the slight blush creeping up the other man’s face who seemed to lose his train of thoughts for a second because for a moment all he did was stare at Enjolras before he blinked rapidly a few times.

He pulled something out of what Enjolras heavily suspected was Joly’s parka then and announced, “I got something for you. From Parnasse."

He dropped a slightly crumbled postcard into Enjolras’s unoccupied hand.

There was a typical scene of a cliffside, blue sea, green grass and flowers with a curved lettering of ‘Cornwall’ on the front.

When he turned the card around though not even trying not to laugh nothing was written on the backside except for the address.

Grantaire shrugged. “I guess he’s still kind of angry.”

"Can't imagine why,” Enjolras said but grinned.

“Well, you did almost break his jaw” Grantaire huffed with a grin as well then tugged at Enjolras's hand. “Anyway, you said something about breakfast and I feel like I have to thank you for more than one reason because like that I had an excuse or I would have been forced to stay and eat Bossuet’s pancakes, I don’t know why anyone ever lets him near a kitchen anymore. But that also means I’m starving but I know this place -”

Enjolras let himself be dragged along listening to Grantaire talking, one hand gesturing animatedly while the other one was holding Enjolras’s.

And he held on tight in return, maybe a little bit too tight still, not planning on letting go anytime soon and smiled knowing that they were young and together and going to be alright. 

And well, there was always more than one way to change the world.

 

***

 

 

 


End file.
